Hemionitis palmata L.

  • Authority

    Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

  • Family

    Pteridaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Hemionitis palmata L.

  • Description

    Species Description - Terrestrial fern 10-20(-35) cm tall. Rhizome short, suberect, 0.5-1 cm thick, loosely clothed with tawny, linear-attenuate scales. Fronds somewhat dimorphic; sterile fronds short-stipitate, spreading or nearly prostrate, with blades 3- or 5-lobed, the lobes short, round or acutish; fertile fronds rigidly erect, 15-35 cm long; stipes much longer than the blades, dark purple-brown, deciduously villous with lax or retrorse pericellular hairs. Blades pentagonal in outline, 5-15 cm long and broad, 3-partite, the distal portion ovate to oblong-lanceolate and coarsely lobed below the acute apex; basal segments inequilateral, forked near the base (rarely tripartite), the upper division larger, both similar in outline to the apical division; veins usually dark brown on lower surface; tissue sparsely hirsute on upper surface, densely hirsute beneath.

  • Distribution

    Common on shaded earth banks or humus in secondary humid forests. Bordeaux Mountain (A2595), Cinnamon Bay along North Shore Road (A3518). Also on St. Croix, St. Thomas, and Tortola; Greater and Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, and continental tropical America from Mexico to Bolivia.

    Saint Croix Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Saint Thomas Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Tortola Virgin Islands South America| West Indies| Trinidad and Tobago South America| México Mexico North America| Bolivia South America|