Thelypteris tetragona (Sw.) Small

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Thelypteridaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Thelypteris tetragona (Sw.) Small

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome short-creeping, woody, 7-9 mm thick (excluding stipe bases), at apex bearing a small tuft of brown, lance-attenuate scales 2-3 mm long, these minutely puberulous with forked hairs. Fronds somewhat dimorphic, the fertile ones longer, nanower, and more stiflfly erect; stipes of fertile fronds up to 50 cm long, minutely puberulous with erect, forked hairs. Blades ovate-oblong to deltate-oblong, mostly 30-45 cm long, 10-25 cm broad; rhachis with minute forked and stellate hairs, the other vascular parts on both sides with simple hairs only; pinnae 6-12 pairs, linear-oblong, sessile, acuminate to attenuate at apex, 1-3 cm broad, pinnatifid, the fertile ones usually nanower than the sterile; segments oblong or deltate-oblong, mostly 4-6 mm broad at base, the apex obtuse or obliquely acutish; veins 6-10 pairs per segment, the lowermost adjacent ones joined and sending an excunent veinlet to the sinus; tissue thinly herbaceous, glabrous. Sori inframedial; indusium absent; sporangia deciduously setulose, the setae simple.

  • Discussion

    Basionym. Polypodium tetragonum Swartz, Prodr. 132. 1788.

    Type. Swartz, from Jamaica (S; isotypes SBT; Herb. Willd. 19708-3, B, photo US).

    Syn. Aspidium tetragonum (Swartz) Swartz, J. Bot. (Schrader) 1800(2): 33. 1802.

    Polypodium subtretragonum Link, Hort. Berol. 2: 105, 1833.

    Goniopteris tetragona (Swartz) K. Presl. Tent. pterid. 183. 1836.

    Polypodium smithianum Heward, Mag. Nat. Hist. n.s. 2: 459. 1838. (Type. Heward, from Jamaica, K, photo US.).

    Bryopteris tetragona (Swartz) Urban, Symb. antill. 4: 20. 1903, not Kuntze, 1891.

    Bryopteris subtetragona (Link) Maxon, Sci. Surv. Porto Rico & Virgin Is. 6: 473. 1926.

    Thelypteris subtetragona (Link) E. St. John, Amer. Fem L 26:44. 1936.

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Florida, Greater and Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, and continental tropical America from Mexico to Ecuador and Brazil.

    United States of America North America| West Indies| Mexico North America| Central America| Venezuela South America| Colombia South America| Ecuador South America| Brazil South America|