Asplenium formosum Willd.

  • 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 formosum Willd.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Rhizome short, erect or ascending, bearing at apex a tuft of convex deltate-acuminate scales 1.5-2.5 mm long, these bicolorous with dense black medial stripe and broad, light brown, clathrate margins. Fronds numerous, densely tufted in a rosette, mostly 8-30 cm long; stipes 1.5-3.5 cm long, narrowly 2-winged adaxially, naked. Blades 1-pinnate, linear or narrowly linear-oblanceolate, usually 1.5-3 cm broad, acute to acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed at base; rhachis narrowly 2-winged adaxially, naked; pinnae 20-50 pairs, nearly at right angles to the rhachis, subsessile, mostly linear-oblong from an obliquely rectangular or unequally cuneate base, 3-6 mm broad, senately incised chiefly on acroscopic side and around apex, the teeth mostly bifid; veins very oblique, simple or forked; tissue herbaceous, dark green, glabrous. Sori usually 1-3 per pinna (rarely more), confined to the unbranched basiscopic veins; indusium whitish, firm, glabrous, the margin entire. This species has a characteristic "ferny" odor that persists even in dried specimens; a similar odor occurs in many related species of Asplenium.

  • Discussion

    Type. Bredemeyer, from Caracas, Venezuela (Herb. Willd. 19908, B).

    Syn. Asplenium nanum Willdenow in Linnaeus, Sp. pl. 5:323.1810. (Type. Plumier, Traite foug. Amer., t. 66, fig. B, based on a plant found in Martinique.)

  • Distribution

    Greater and Lesser Antilles, continental tropical America from Mexico to Argentina and Paraguay, tropical Africa, India, and Ceylon. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known only from the westem half of the Cordillera Central; recorded from Maricao, Ponce, and Yauco. Habitat. On shaded boulders and ledges beside streams, rocky non-calcareous roadside banks, and occasionally epiphytic on mossy tree-trunks, at middle to upper-middle elevations (325-840 m), rare or locally frequent.

    México Mexico North America| Argentina South America| Paraguay South America| India Asia| Ceylon Asia| Puerto Rico South America| Maricao Puerto Rico South America| Ponce Puerto Rico South America| Yauco Puerto Rico South America|