Cheilanthes

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Pteridaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Cheilanthes

  • Description

    Species Description - Small tenestrial or epipetric fems, many with glandular, farinose, scaly, or hairy foliage. Rhizomes short-creeping, bearing scales. Fronds fasciculate or closely distichous, erect, stipitate, and not dimorphic. Blades 1- to 4-pinnate, or 1-pinnate and variously pinnatifid, the ultimate divisions minute to elongate; rhachis and costae terete, not winged; veins obscure or concealed, simple or forked, free. Sori marginal or submarginal, originating from the enlarged tips of veins and more or less conffuent laterally, in some species partly concealed by the hairy, scaly, or farinose indument; indusium if present formed by the revolute or reffexed, scarcely modified margin, or in some cases the latter giving rise to a membranous true indusium; sometimes obsolescent or entirely lacking, the margin becoming ffattened as it matures. Paraphyses lacking; sporangia with annulus of 14-24 cells; spores globose to tetrahedral-globose, trilete, the surface cristate, reticulate-cristate, rugose, or densely granular.

  • Discussion

    Type Species. Cheilanthes micropteris Swartz (by conservation), of southern South America.

    Syn. Notholaena R. Brown, Prodr. 145. 1810. (Type, A^. trichomanoides (Linnaeus) Desvaux,)

    A nearly worldwide, heterogeneous grouping of nearly 200 species, many of them characteristic of arid or rocky habitats. Notholaena and other segregate genera have been maintained by some authors, but a rational subdivision of the complex has yet to be accomplished, as pointed out by Mickel (1979). The generic name is derived from the Greek cheilos, lip + anthos, ffower, alluding to the position of the sporangia beneath the lip-like indusium of some species.

    Special Literature. Tryon, R. M. 1956. A revision of the American species of Notholaena. Contr. Gray Herb. 179: 1-106, 58 figs., 67 maps; Knobloch, I. W . 1967. Chromosome numbers in Cheilanthes, Notholaena, Llavea, and Polypodium. Amer. J. Bot. 54: 461-464; Mickel, J. T. 1979, The fem genus Cheilanthes in continental United States, Phytologia 41(6): 431-437; Tryon, R. M . & A. F. Tryon. 1982. Fems and allied plants, pp. 249-261, 40 figs.; 270-278, 28 figs