Pteris ensiformis Baker & Burm.

  • Authority

    Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.

  • Family

    Pteridaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Pteris ensiformis Baker & Burm.

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome creeping or ascending, 3-5 mm diam., closely invested with stipe bases, clothed at apex with a tuft of reddish-brown, narrowly deltateattenuate scales 1.5-2 mm long. Fronds clustered erect, glabrous, loosely oblong or lanceolate in outline, 15-60 cm long, 2-pinnate below the usually simple distal pinnae, somewhat dimorphic, the sterile ones shorter and more spreading than the fertile; stipes mostly 5-25 cm long, often equalling or exceeding the blades, greenish or straw-colored, subquadrangular, deeply grooved adaxially. Blades either fully sterile, partly fertile and sterile, or wholly fertile; lower 1-3 pairs of pinnae cut to the costa (or nearly so) into 1-3 pairs of pinnules or segments; sterile ultimate divisions mostly 5-10 mm broad, the apex broadly rounded, the margins piculateserrulate; apical segment lanceolate and 1-3 cm long; veins mostly 1 -forked. Fertile ultimate divisions mostly 3-6 mm broad, linear and greatly elongate, the apical one 5-18 cm long, the lateral ones simple or pinnatifid, with segments decurrent onto the costa; tissue thin-herbaceous, in Puerto Rican plants light green with a central whitish stripe. Indusium 0.5 mm wide, pale or whitish, entire.

  • Discussion

    Lectotype. J. Burmann, Thes. zeylan., t. 187, based on material from Ceylon.

    General Distribution. Not known for the variegated Puerto Rican form, which is an escaped cultivar (cv. Victoria). The typical non-variegated form occurs in Ceylon, tropical Asia, Indonesia, northem Australia, the Philippines, and Polynesia; it is widely naturalized in Jamaica, and has also been collected in Cuba. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Widely cultivated as a pot plant, sparingly escaped and becoming naturalized in a few localities; recorded from Maricao and San Juan. Habitat. Shaded banks of streams and drainage channels at low to middle elevations (10-450 m), rare.]

  • Distribution

    Puerto Rico South America| Ceylon Asia| Indonesia Asia| Australia Oceania| Oceania| Jamaica South America|