Elaphoglossum longifolium (Jacq.) Sm.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Dryopteridaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Elaphoglossum longifolium (Jacq.) Sm.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Rhizome woody, creeping or ascending, 6-12 mm thick (excluding stipe bases), densely clothed at apex with firm, brown to dark brown, deltate to ovate-lanceolate scales 6-11 mm long, these acuminate or attenuate, glabrous, and with entire or erosely denticulate margins. Sterile froruis very closely distichous, erect, 30-70(-85) cm long; stipes very much shorter than the blades, strawcolored, grooved adaxially, bearing a few chaffy scales chiefly toward the base; phyllopodium brown, not clearly diflferentiated; blades ligulate or narrowly elliptic, mostly 4.5-6.5 cm broad, acuminate at apex, decurrent at base; rhachis naked or with a few scattered very small, appressed, stellate scales abaxially; veins mostly 1- to 2-forked, the tips joined to a submarginal vein; tissue rigidly thin-chartaceous, very minutely punctate-scaly on both sides, the tiny scales stellate and appressed to the surface. Fertile fronds shorter than the sterile ones but with much longer stipes; blades narrowly elliptic, 20-30(-55) cm long, up to 5 cm broad, pointed-acuminate at apex, decurrent at base.

  • Discussion

    Type. Jacquin, from Martinique (BM ?, not seen). With his original description (1788), Jacquin cited Plumier, Traite foug. Amer., t. 135, which illustrates a plant from Martinique that may be this species.

    Syn. Acrostichum longifolium Jacquin, Collectanea 2: 105. 1788, not N. L. Burmann, 1768.

    Olfersia longifoliaK. Presl, Tent, pterid. 234.1836. Acionopteris longifolia Fee, Mem. foug. 2: 80, t. 41. 1845.

    Acrostichum latifolium of Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W.I. 677. 1864, in part, not Swartz, 1788.

    The stipes are proportionately much shorter in Puerto Rican plants than they are in Lesser Antillean material. This species was called Elaphoglossum rigidum by Maxon (1926), but the latter name must apparently be applied to the plant that Maxon called E. flaccidum.

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Greater Antilles except Jamaica, Lesser Antilles, and continental tropical America.

    West Indies|