Asplenium rutaceum (Willd.) Mett.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Aspleniaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Asplenium rutaceum (Willd.) Mett.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Rhizome erect, 3-10 mm thick, at apex bearing numerous gray-brown, clathrate, linear to lanceolate scales 3-5 mm long. Fronds closely clustered, 30-50 cm long; stipes lustrous purplebrown, 1-4 cm long, terete, naked, and glabrous. Blades 3-pinnate, narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate, 7-11 cm broad at or above the middle; rhachis dark purple-brown like the stipe, bearing a few scattered, flexuous, blackish, hairlike scales, and prolonged at apex into an elongate, naked, flagelliform, often proliferous tip; pinnae numerous, up to 5.5 cm long, sessile; costae and pinnules bearing few to rather numerous short, appressed, pluricellular, light brown, glandular hairs on abaxial side; primary pinnules usually 7-11 pairs, the lowest overlapping the rhachis; ultimate pinnules oblanceolate, 3-5 mm long, acute to subacuminate at apex, 1 -veined; tissue thin-membranous, rather dark green. Sori solitary on ultimate pinnules, averaging ca. 1.5 mm long; indusium thin, light brown, elliptic, with minutely erose margin.

    Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Greater Antilles except Cuba, and continental tropical America from Guatemala to the Guianas and Bolivia. Distribution in Puerto Rico. N o definite locality is known; collected by Schwanecke in the early nineteenth century (B, fragm. US). Habitat. As noted elsewhere, on moist rocky stream banks and shaded slopes in humid montane forest, rarely on mossy stumps or tree-trunks, at upper middle elevations. The continued existence of this species in Puerto Rico needs confirmation.

  • Discussion

    Fig. 64.

    Basionym. Aspidium rutaceum Willdenow in Linnaeus, Sp. pl. 5: 266. 1810.

    Lectotype. Plumier, Traite foug. Amer., t. 57, based on a plant from Hispaniola.

    Syn. Asplenium willdenowii Jenman, Gard. Chron. ser. 3,19:8. 1896, not A. Braun ex Mettenius, 1864. (Type. Jenman, from Jamaica ?, not seen.)

    Asplenium conquisitum Underwood & Maxon ex Christ, Bull. Herb. Boissier ser. 2, 7: 270. 1907, (Lectotype. Maxon 1558, from near the Mabess River, parish of Portland, Jamaica, US,)