Pteris pungens Willd.

  • 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 pungens Willd.

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome short, ascending, ca. 1 cm diam. (excluding stipe bases), at the apex bearing a dense tuft of narrowly lance-linear scales 2-4 mm long, these bicolorous with median black stripe and red-brown, erose margins. Fronds crowded, ascending, up to 1.4 m long; stipes usually equalling or exceeding the blades, yellowish to more or less red-brown, deeply grooved adaxially. Blades glabrous, suborbicular to broadly pentagonal-oblong, up to 50 cm broad, usually with 2-4 pairs of subsessile pinnae and a similar apical one; rhachis naked like the stipe except for clusters of numerous minute conic or finger-like papillae in the axils of pinnae. Pinnae deeply pinnatisect, the basal ones 2-partite, the others lanceolate to elliptic, 4-8 cm broad near the middle, abruptly caudate at the apex and tapering at base, the very basal segments sometimes mere auricles; segments linear or narrowly oblong, straight to subfalcate, mostly 4-8 mm broad; costae awned adaxially at base of costules; veins mostly 1-forked. Indusium pale brown, ca. 0.5 mm wide, with entire margin.

  • Discussion

    Lectotype. Plumier, Traite foug. Amer., t. 14, based on a plant collected along the Grande Riviere, near Leogane, Haiti.

    Syn. Pteris acuminata Desvaux, Ges. Naturf. Freunde Beriin Mag. 5: 324. 1811. (Type. Ex Herb. Desvaux (collector not stated), from Puerto Rico, P.)

    Pteris quadriaurita var. pungens (Willdenow) Bommer & Christ, Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belgique 35: 190. 1896.

    Pteris biaurita var. pungens (Willdenow) Christ, Bot. Jahrb, Syst, 24: 99. 1897.

    General Distribution. Greater Antilles except Cuba; Guadeloupe and Martinique; Trinidad and continental tropical America from Mexico to Bolivia. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known from only three collections. Guaynabo: Hillside forest nr. Pueblo Viejo, 11 Mar 1924, N. L. & E. G. Britton 8098 (NY, SJ, US); San Juan: Rio Piedras, Feb 1911, Bro. Crisostomo 121 (US); Yabucoa: Siena de Yabucoa, "in sylvis montis Ceno Gordo," 4 Sep 1885, Sintenis 2589 (US). Habitat. "Hillside forest," etc., at low to middle elevations (20-500 m), very rare. This species often grows on or near the banks of streams in other regions.

  • Distribution

    Greater Antilles except Cuba; Guadeloupe and Martinique; Trinidad and continental tropical America from Mexico to Bolivia. Distribution in Puerto Rico.

    Cuba South America| Guadeloupe South America| Martinique South America| Trinidad and Tobago South America| México Mexico North America| Bolivia South America| Puerto Rico South America|