Polypodium consimile Mett.
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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
Polypodiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Rhizome short- to long-creeping, 3-7 mm thick, clothed at apex with dusky brown, clathrate or non-clathrate, narrowly deltate-acuminate scales mostly 1.5-2.5 mm long (rarely longer). Fronds closely crowded on rhizome, 25-60(-75) cm long; stipes almost lacking or sometimes up to 2 cm long (maximum in Puerto Rican specimens seen), dark red-brown, glabrate or with scattered acicular hairs to 0.75 mm long and much smaller clavate ones. Blades narrowly elliptic, 4-7 cm broad near the middle, tapering at both ends; rhachis with a few inconspicuous, linear, entire scales abaxially; segments numerous, ligulate, 4-6 mm broad, obtuse at apex, symmetrically expanded and confluent at base, the margins entire; costae decunent; veins usually 2-forked (1-forked in one Puerto Rican variant), free; tissue light to dark green, herbaceous, nearly glabrous. Sori inframedial (rarely supramedial), round, small, with simple and branched clavate paraphyses; sporangia setulose or glabrous.
Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Greater Antilles except Cuba, and continental tropical America from Guatemala to Colombia and Venezuela. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known from four collections, all in the central part ofthe Cordillera Central. Habitat. Tenestrial in moist forest at upper middle to high elevations (700-1120 m), rare.
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Discussion
Fig. 93.
Type. Schlim 633, from Ocaiia, Norte de Santander, Colombia (B; isotypes BR, G, L, as cited by Evans, 1968).
Syn. Pecluma consimilis (Mettenius) M. Price, Amer. Fem J. 73: 113. 1983.