Bolbitis portoricensis (Spreng.) Hennipman

  • 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

    Bolbitis portoricensis (Spreng.) Hennipman

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome short-creeping, 8-15 cm thick or more, clothed especially near apex with dark reddish-brown, lance-attenuate scales up to 10 mm long and 2 mm wide. Fronds close, the sterile ones mostly 40-160 cm long; stipes 4-60 cm long, 1.5-7 mm thick near base, yellowish-brown. Sterile blades deltate-oblong and long-acuminate, the apex sometimes long-flagelliform and producing one or more viviparous buds, usually 30-60 cm long (excluding flagellum if present), 20-50 cm broad near base, the lower part 1-pinnate to 1-pinnate-pinnatifid; basal pinnae stalked, unequally elongate-deltate, auriculate-excavate at base and pinnately lobed or pinnatifid; other pinnae mostly equilateral, sessile, deeply lobed, the upper ones progressively more broadly decurrent on the rhachis; pinnae acuminate- attenuate at apex, the margins of lobes distantly denticulate; costae with few, scattered, minute, lance-deltate, subclathrate scales abaxially, especially near junction with the rhachis. Fertile blades much smaller than the sterile ones but with longer stipes.

  • Discussion

    Fig. 85.

    Basionym. Acrostichum portoricense Sprengel, Nova Acta Phys.-Med. Acad. Caes. Leop.-Carol. Nat. Cur. 10: 226. 1821.

    Type. Bertero, from Puerto Rico (G; isotypes P, TO, cited by Hennipman, 1975).

    Syn. Acrostichum cladorrhizans Sprengel, op. cit. 225. (Type from Puerto Rico.)

    Gymnopteris portoricensis (Sprengel) Fee, Mem. foug. 2: 85. 1845.

    Acrostichum alienum var. fiagellum Jenman, Bull. Bot. Dept. Jamaica n.s. 5: 154. 1898.

    Leptochilus cladorrhizans (Sprengel) Maxon, Sci. Surv. Porto Rico & Virgin Is. 6: 460. 1926.

    Bolbitis cladorrhizans (Sprengel) Ching ex C. Christensen, Index filic. suppl. 3: 47. 1934.

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Greater and Lesser Antilles, Tobago, Trinidad, and continental tropical America from Mexico to Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.

    West Indies| Mexico North America| Central America| Venezuela South America| Colombia South America|