Adiantopsis
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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
Pteridaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Small tenestrial fems of stony forests, shaded ledges, and pockets of cliflfs. Rhizomes erect or decumbent, short, clothed with bicolorous scales at the apex. Fronds erect to spreading, of stiff texture, the vascular parts lustrous black, wiry, and glabrous. Blades 1- to 4-pinnate, linear or lanceolate to ovate-pentagonal, or radiate-pinnate and orbicular in outline; rhachis and costae typically 2-winged on adaxial side throughout, the channel between the wings appearing to be a groove; pinnules usually deciduous with age; veins few, immersed, free. Sori terminal on veins, without paraphyses, distinct and separate, each covered by a roundish to lunate indusium diflferentiated from the recurved margin; spores tetrahedral-globose, trilete, the surface echinate.
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Discussion
1852. Type Species. Adiantopsis paupercula (Kunze) Fee, based on Adiantum pauperculum of the Greater Antilles.
and 15 species (the precise number in doubt), one of them, the type, occurring in Puerto Rico. The group is sometimes included as a subgenus in Cheilanthes. The generic name alludes to a superficial resemblance to Adiantum (Greek -opsis, like).
Special Literature. Tryon, R. M . & A. F. Tryon. 1982. Fems and allied plants, pp. 266-270, 12 figs