Elaphoglossum latifolium (Sw.) J.Sm.
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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
Dryopteridaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Rhizome creeping, woody, 9-15 mm thick (excluding stipe bases), densely clothed at apex with light- to medium-brown, narrowly lance-attenuate scales mostly 6-13 mm long, with more or less contorted, hairlike apex and distantly fibrillose-ciliate margins. Sterile fronds erect, (30-)45-70 cm long, with stipes shorter than the blades, (12-) 16-20 cm long, light brown, grooved on adaxial side, narrowly winged toward distal end, dotted with a few very minute appressed stellate scales, and also bearing a few larger, scattered, spreading, deciduous scales when young; phyllopodia black, ca. 1.5 cm long; blades oblong to narrowly elliptic, mostly 20-50 cm long, 4-9 cm broad, acute at apex, abruptly cuneate or shortdecurrent at base, bearing scattered, extremely minute, appressed stellate scales on both sides; veins 1- to 2-forked, sometimes a few rejoining at random in the tissue, all joined at the tips to a submarginal vein; tissue stiflf-coriaceous, opaque. Fertile fronds always smaller than the sterile ones, the stipes of more or less equal length, the blades mostly 13-18 cm long, ca. 2.5 cm broad, acute at apex, cuneate at base.
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Discussion
Basionym. Acrostichum latifolium Swartz, Prodr. 128. 1788.
Type. Swartz, from Jamaica (S).
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Distribution
General Distribution. Greater Antilles, and to an unknown extent in continental tropical America. Many ofthe continental plants called by this name probably represent diflferent species, but the taxonomy is very complicated. Not previously authenticated for Puerto Rico.