Polypodium aureum L.
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Polypodiaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Epiphytic fern. Rhizome creeping, 9-15 mm thick, densely clothed with numerous, pale orange or tawny, denticulate-ciliate scales, mostly 10-15 mm long, these linear-attenuate or filiform from a slightly enlarged and darker base, attached peltately by a minute brown stalk. Fronds arching or pendent, 0.5-1.7 m long, seasonally deciduous; stipes 20-70 cm long, lustrous dark brown to light reddish brown, glabrous. Blades ovate-oblong or broadly oblong, 35-100 x 22-45 cm, deeply and coarsely pinnatisect, often with a much larger terminal segment; segments 6-22 pairs, ligulate or lance-ligulate, 2-3.8 cm broad, obtuse to acuminate at apex, joined at base by a rachis-wing, 2-9 mm wide; margins subentire to minutely and distantly crenulate; veins mostly reticulate, forming a row of oblong to narrowly ob-triangular areoles without included veinlets, then 2 uneven and irregular series of larger areoles with included veinlets, mixed with smaller areoles lacking included veinlets; tissue usually green, rarely somewhat glaucous. Sori uniseriate, round or oval, located at the junction of 2 intra-areolate veinlets or sometimes at tip of a single free veinlet; very rarely a partial third row of sori present.
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Distribution
Common in moist forests. Bordeaux Mountain (A5110), Trail to Sieben (A2070). Also on St. Croix, St. Thomas, Tortola, and Virgin Gorda; Florida, Bahamas, Greater and Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, and continental tropical America.
Trinidad and Tobago South America| West Indies| Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Bahamas South America| Virgin Gorda Virgin Islands South America| Tortola Virgin Islands South America| Saint Thomas Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Saint Croix Virgin Islands of the United States South America|