Thelypteris reptans (J.F.Gmel.) C.V.Morton

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Thelypteridaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Thelypteris reptans (J.F.Gmel.) C.V.Morton

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome small, decumbent, clothed at apex with a small tuft of thin, light brown, subclathrate, minutely stellate-puberulous, deltate-lanceolate scales up to 6 mm long and 1.5 mm wide near base. Fronds rather few, usually more or less dimorphic, extremely variable in shape and length, the sterile ones spreading or procumbent, either short and non-proliferous or elongate and proliferous, sometimes creeping indefinitely and rooting at several places, the fertile fronds usually erect and non-proliferous, but these also m a y be arching and proliferous, sometimes in more than one place; sterile fronds m a y also sometimes be ascending or erect. Stipes slender, 2-25 cm long, deciduously stellate-puberulous. Blades oblongacuminate (rarely obtuse) to lanceolate or linearattenuate, most often 10-30 cm long, 2.5-6(-10) cm broad, pinnate in the lower half or nearly throughout, otherwise pinnatifid; rhachis stellate- puberulous and also bearing a variable number of longer simple hairs; similar pubescence on costae and veins of both sides but especially beneath. Pinnae sessile or nearly so, distant to approximate, linear to oblong or oval, variable in size, truncate or usually subcordate at base, rounded-obtuse to acuminate at apex, the margins subentire to crenate or crenately lobed, the tissue with few or many minute hairs on both sides; veins 2-7 pairs, the basal adjacent ones usually joined and giving rise to an excunent veinlet. Sori inframedial, small; indusium, if present, small or vestigial, conspicuously ciliate with long, simple and forked hairs; sporangia usually appearing to be glabrous, the few setae quickly deciduous.

  • Discussion

    Fig. 62.

    Basionym. Polypodium reptans J. F. Gmelin in Linnaeus, Syst. nat., ed. 13, 2(2): 1309. 1791; a renaming of P. repens Swartz, not Aublet.

    Type. Swartz, from Jamaica (isotypes Herb. Thunb. 24564, UPS; Herb. Willd. 19673, B, photos G H , US).

    Syn. Polypodium repens Swartz, Prodr. 132. 1788, not Aublet, 1775.

    Polypodium repandum Swartz, J. Bot. (Schrader) 1800(2): 25. 1802, not Loureiro, 1790.

    Polypodium sloanei Desvaux, Mem. Soc. Linn. Paris 6: 238. 1827, (Type not seen.)

    Goniopteris reptans (J, F, Gmelin) K. Presl, Tent. pterid. 182. 1836.

    Aspidium reptans (J. F. Gmelin) Mettenius, Abh. Senckenberg. Naturf. Ges. 2: 382 (no. 237). 1858; also var. radicans (Lamarck) Mettenius, op. cit. 383 (var. 3).

    Phegopteris reptans (J. F. Gmelin) D. C. Eaton, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 10: 101. 1883.

    Nephrodium asplenioides subsp. reptans (J. F. Gmelin) Jenman, Bull. Bot. Dept. Jamaica n.s. 3:212. 1896.

    Nephrodium reptans (J. F. Gmelin) Diels in Engler. & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam, 1(4): 168.1899.

    Bryopteris reptans (J. F. Gmelin) C. Christensen, Index filic. 288, 1905.

    Bryopteris radicans Maxon, Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 10: 490. 1908, not Asplenium radicans Linnaeus, 1759.

    Two varieties of this species occur in Puerto Rico, these widely separated ecologically and geographically. They can be distinguished as follows:

    a. Fronds usually dimorphic, often proliferous; indusium at least vestigially present; tissue hairs stellate, usually with 3-5 rays,

    29a. var. reptans.

    a. Fronds not dimorphic, never proliferous; indusium entirely absent; tissue hairs mostly forked, or a few with 3 rays

    29b. var. tenera.