Asplenium auritum Sw.
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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 short, ascending to erect, 4-7(-8) mm thick (excluding roots and adhering stipe bases), at apex bearing a tuft of brown, slightly iridescent, clathrate, deltate-ovate scales 2-4 mm long and up to 2 mm broad. Fronds several, loosely clustered, essentially glabrous, mostly 15-49 cm long; stipes usually shorter than the blades (rarely longer), grooved adaxially, bicolorous. Blades narrowly to broadly oblong, deltate-oblong, or narrowly deltate, 4-15 cm broad at the truncate base, long-acuminate at apex; rhachis marginate to narrowly winged, often bearing a few scattered, black, hairlike scales; pinnae 20-28 pairs, short-stalked and inequilateral at base, and usually more or less auriculate-lobed (or pinnate) at base on acroscopic side; veins 1- or 2-forked, or pinnate in basal auricles, all reaching the margin (in Puerto Rican specimens); tissue firm, chartaceous, subopaque. Sori inframedial, mostly 2-4 mm long, bome at a very nanow angle to the costa, never diplazioid; indusium firm, whitish to pale brown, the margin entire.
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Discussion
Type. Swartz, from Jamaica (S, photo US; isotypes Herb. Thunb. 24781, 24782, UPA; Herb. Willd 19903, B, photos G H , US).
This species is diflferentiated into two varieties in Puerto Rico; these can be separated as follows:
a. Pinnae more or less strongly auriculate-lobed at base, otherwise the margins merely serrate or shallowly lobed
19a. var. auritum.
a. Pinnae more or less deeply pinnatifid, or sometimes fully 2-pinnate at base
19b. var. bipinnatifidum.