Ceratopteris
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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
Pteridaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Aquatic or subaquatic homosporous fems of annual life-span and subsucculent or soft-herbaceous texture. Rhizome short, rooted or floating, bearing a few small dark scales at apex. Fronds dimorphic, spreading to erect, stipitate; sterile blades simple to 3-pinnate, with broad leafy divisions and often bearing proliferous buds in the sinuses; veins reticulate, the areoles lacking free included veinlets. Fertile blades usually much larger than the sterile and more finely dissected, the ultimate segments linear, with margins reflexed or inrolled to enclose 1-4 rows of sporangia. Sporangia nearly sessile, attached along veins, of mixed development, globose and thin-walled, with annulus lacking or up to 71 thickened cells; spores globose, trilete, and relatively large (70-150 µm diam.), the surface marked with coarse parallel ridges.
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Discussion
Type Species. Ceratopteris thalictroides (Linnaeus) Brongniart, based on Acrostichum thalictroides Linnaeus, of pantropical distribution.
A genus of perhaps four species, all of them widely distributed; two are here credited to Puerto Rico. The generic name is derived from the Greek keras, h o m + pteris, fem, in allusion to the antler-like dissection of the fertile fronds.
Special Literature. Lloyd, R. M. 1974. Systematics of the genus Ceratopteris Brongn. (Parkeriaceae) II. Taxonomy. Brittonia 26: 139-160,^^5. 1-9; Tryon, R. M. & A. F. Tryon. 1982. Fems and allied plants, pp. 312-319, 14 figs.