Polypodium plumula Willd.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Polypodiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Polypodium plumula Willd.

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome short-creeping, 4-10 mm thick, clothed with dark brown, linear-deltate or narrowly deltate-attenuate scales 2-4 mm long, with denticulate margins. Fronds closely distichous, hygro-elastic, mostly 15-30(-50) cm long; stipes 3-8 cm long, blackish, pubemlous with small acicular hairs. Blades oblong or linear-oblong, usually 12-25 cm long, 3-5 cm broad; rhachis blackish, minutely pubescent (some of the hairs on abaxial side being glandular), bearing a few small brown deltate scales abaxially; segments numerous, close, horizontal , narrowly ligulate, with ciliolate margins; costae blackish, the veins obscure; tissue and costae minutely septate-puberulous or nearly glabrous; tissue opaque. Sori terminal on distal torks ot veins; long, simple, clavate paraphyses mixed with the sporangia; sporangia minutely setulose or glabrous.

    Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Florida Greater Antilles. Lesser Antilles (Saba, Guadeloupe, Martinique), and continental tropical Amenca from Mexico to Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known from rather few scattered localities; recorded from Cayey, Juana Diaz, Mayaguez, Ponce, Salinas, and Yauco. Habitat. On shaded boulders, crags, and cliflfs, rarely on logs or tree-tmnks, at middle to upper middle elevations (300-860 m), rare.

  • Discussion

    Fig. 91.

    Lectotype. ^r^a^m^y^r, from Caracas, Venezuela (Herb. Willd. 19655. sheet 1. B).

    Syn. Polypodium elasticum L. C. Richard ex Desvaux Mem. Soc. Linn. Paris 6: 233. 1827, not Bory ex Willdenow, 1810. (A superfluous and illegitimate renaming of P. plumula Humbolt & Bonpland ex Wildnow.)

    Ctenopteris plumula (Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow) J. Smith, Hist. fil. 185. 1875.

    Pecluma plumula (Humboldt & Bonpland ex Pecluma plumula {Hnmholdt & Bonpland ex Willdenow) M. Pnce, Amer. Fem J. 73: 115. 1983.