Anemia recondita Mickel

Authority

Mickel, John T. & Smith, Alan R. 2004. The pteridophytes of Mexico. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 88: 1-1054.

Family

Anemiaceae

Scientific Name

Anemia recondita Mickel

Description

Species Description - Rhizomes horizontal, compact, short-creeping, 3–6 mm diam.; rhizome hairs orange; fronds erect, sterile fronds 12–19 cm tall, fertile fronds 15–42 cm tall; stipes 0.7–1 mm diam., stramineous, hirsute, ca. 1/3 the sterile frond height, ca. 2/3 the fertile frond height; blades narrowly oblong to narrowly deltate, 1- pinnate, 2.5–5 cm wide, papyraceous, apices pinnatifid; pinnae 6–9 pairs, apices pinnatifid, pinnae opposite to subopposite, oblong, truncate to cuneate at bases, often excavate basiscopically, apices acute to obtuse, margins minutely denticulate and shallowly to deeply incised; veins free; blade surfaces hirsute; fertile pinnae approximate to the sterile pinnae, usually surpassing the sterile blades in height; spores generally malformed, rarely well formed, striate, the striate smooth, narrow; 2n=38II + 114I (Jal, Méx, Nay), rarely n=190II (Nay), in meiosis.

Discussion

Type. Mexico. Nayarit: SE of Tepic on Rte 15, Km 859-860, Mickel 1703 (NY!).

Anemia recondita has apparently arisen through hybridization between A. hirsuta and A. jaliscana. Both putative parents are variable in size and dissection. Anemia hirsuta has subentire to highly lacerate, hirsute pinnae, usually pinnatifid blade apices, and spores with smooth ridges. Anemia jaliscana has nearly entire pinnae in the southern part of its range (Me´xico, and to a lesser extent, Jalisco), with distinctly subrhomboid or trapezoid rounded pinnae, but in northern Jalisco and Nayarit, pinnae can be denticulate to slightly lacerate, and A. jaliscana then resembles A. affinis. Anemia recondita also varies on the same plant, with the pinnae of sterile fronds generally more nearly entire and those of the fertile fronds more incised. Anemia recondita, consequently, may take various forms. Its degree of dissection depends largely on the dissection of A. hirsuta in that specific locality. Thus, hybrids may have barely incised pinnae (as little as some plants of A. jaliscana) to deeply incised pinnae, and although A. recondita never reaches the extremes of dissection found in A. hirsuta, at some localities with highly dissected A. hirsuta as a parent, it may be more dissected than plants of A. hirsuta at other localities. Identification can best be made when both parents from a locality are seen together with the hybrid, since A. recondita can then be spotted as intermediate. An individual plant taken out of context, however, might be taken for either A. hirsuta or A. jaliscana. Generally, any plant looking like either of these two species and having malformed spores (seen with 30x magnification) can be identified as A. recondita. In one locality (Tepic-Compostela road, Nayarit), A. recondita grows with A. hirsuta, A. jaliscana, A. pastinacaria, and A. multiplex, and has a doubled chromosome number (decaploid, 2n=380) and well formed spores (Mickel 1708c). The spores are much larger than those of the parents. Spores of A. hirsuta at this locality average 72 (66–77) µm in diam., those of A. jaliscana jaliscana ca. 71 (68–74) µm, whereas those of A. recondita average 100 (89–114) µm in diam. The sculpturing, however, is similar in all three–narrowly ridged with broad grooves between ridges.

Distribution

Found nearly everywhere A. hirsuta and A. jaliscana occur together, in disturbed areas, such as roadbanks and lightly shaded pastures; 900–2200 m. Mexico.

Mexico North America|