Lastreopsis

• Authority

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

• Family

  Dryopteridaceae

• Scientific Name

  Lastreopsis

• Description

  Species Description - Medium-sized to rather large tenestrial fems. Rhizomes creeping (ours) to erect, bearing scales and many long, fibrous roots. Fronds monomorphic, arching, long-stipitate; stipes with two prominent ridges on adaxial side. Blades decompound, more or less deltate in outline, catadromous (ours) or anadromous; rhachis bordered by two prominent adaxial ridges, these continuous (via costae and costules) with the thickened proximal margins of the ultimate segments, the groove between them clothed with articulate, pluricellular, unbranched hairs; ultimate divisions usually acute or apiculate to mucronate; veins all free, usually reaching the margins. Sori small, round, with an orbicular or reniform indusium, or else without an indusium (ours); paraphyses lacking; sporangia glabrous with glandular stalk, the annulus with 12-18 cells; spores more or less ellipsoid, monolete, the surface mgulose-saccate or with long folds.

• Discussion

  Type Species. Lastreopsis recedens (J. Smith ex Moore) Ching, a synonym of L. tenera (R. Brown) Tindale, of wide distribution in the Oriental tropics.

• Distribution

  A pantropical genus of about 35 species; one is recorded from Puerto Rico. The generic name is derived from Lastrea (for Charles Jean Louis Delastre, ca. 1792-1859, a French botanist) + Greek opsis, like, suggesting a resemblance to Lastrea (a name formerly applied to species of Bryopteris).