Lindsaea portoricensis Desv.
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Authority
Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.
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Family
Lindsaeaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Rhizome short-creeping, 2-4 mm in diam., clothed with dark brown, narrowly lanceolate scales up to 1.7 mm long and 0.2 mm broad, and provided with numerous strong fibrous roots, these with many yellowish-brown pluricellular hairs up to 0.8 mm long. Fronds several, close. rather stiffly erect, glabrous, mostly 35-80 cm long; stipes often as long as the blades or longer, usually more or less reddish-brown, terete toward base, distally ffattened and narrowly marginate on adaxial side. Blades usually 2-pinnate with an elongate terminal pinna like the few lateral ones (rarely 1-pinnate), mostly 25-50 cm long; rhachis narrowly wing-marginate adaxially throughout; pinnae 1-3 pairs, strongly ascending, 15-25 cm long; pinnules subsessile, subrectangular or tongue-shaped, 5-14 mm long, 3-7 mm broad with broadly rounded apex, the veins elevated toward their bases on both sides, 2- to 3-forked; distal pinnules gradually reduced to 2-4 mm long, often subimbricate. Sori continuous around upper-outer margin, intramarginal; indusium thin, slightly repand-erose, the opposing margin not indusiiform.
Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Greater Antilles, and continental tropical America from Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Found at a few scattered localities along the middle part of the north coast, and one isolated locality in the far west; recorded from Aguada, Dorado, Manati, Vega Alta, and Vega Baja. Habitat. Wet thickets, in humus or peaty soil mixed with or overlying silica sand, at or near sea-level, rare.
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Discussion
Fig. 36.
Type. Ex Herb. Desvaux (collector not cited), from "in Antillis," presumably Puerto Rico (P).
Syn. Lindsaea guianensis of Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W.L 622. 1864, not Dryander, 1797.