Asplenium serratum L.
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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
Aspleniaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Rhizome erect, embedded in a dense mass of brownish, hairy roots, and bearing at apex a tuft of thin, dark brown to blackish, clathrate, narrowly linear-attenuate scales. Fronds stiflfily oblique in a rosette-like cluster, up to 1 m long, nearly stipeless. Blades linear-oblanceolate or oblong-oblanceolate, 7-14 cm broad, abruptly short-acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed toward base, the margins inegular, finely cartilaginous, dentate or finely crenate-senate; tissue firmly chartaceous; veins oblique, parallel, mostly 1-forked near base, bearing elongate, narrowly linear sori; indusium whitish, firm, entire, glabrous.
Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Florida, Greater and Lesser Antilles, St. Thomas, Tobago, Trinidad, and continental tropical America from Mexico to Brazil. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known chiefly from the Siena de Luquillo, with a few other scattered localities; recorded from Loiza, Maricao, and Rio Grande. Virgin Islands. St. Thomas. Habitat. Chiefly on tree-trunks, stumps, or logs in moist forest, rarely on rocks, at low to middle elevations (sea-level-500 m), rare or locally frequent. Sometimes occurs as an epiphyte in Pterocarpus swamp-forest at sea-level.
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Discussion
Lectotype. Plumier, Descr. Pl. Amer., t. 39, based on material from either Martinique or Hispaniola.