Tectaria

Authority

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

Family

Tectariaceae

Scientific Name

Tectaria

Description

Genus Description - Terrestrial or epipetric; rhizomes mostly woody, stout, short, compact, short-creeping to erect, bearing brownish, concolorous, non-clathrate scales; fronds small to often large, monomorphic or somewhat dimorphic, rarely strongly dimorphic, clumped; blades membranaceous to chartaceous, simple to mostly pinnatifid or 1–2-pinnate, rarely more divided; indument on blades absent or very often of reddish, short, jointed (ctenitoid) hairs, especially on rachises and costae adaxially; veins netted (ours), often with free, included, sometimes forked veinlets; sori abaxial and round to oblong, rarely the sporangial in continuous marginal coenosori; indusia peltate or reniform, rarely continuous (with marginal coenosori); spores bilateral, perispores cristate; x =40.

Discussion

Type: Tectaria trifoliata (L.) Cav.[= Polypodium trifoliatum L.]. Aspidium Sw., J. Bot. (Schrader) 1800(2): 4, 29. 1801. Lectotype (first chosen by J. Smith?, Hist. Fil. 200. 1875): Aspidium trifoliatum (L.) Sw. [= Tectaria trifoliata (L.) Cav.]

Dictyoxiphium Hook., Gen. Fil., t. 62. 1840. Type: Dictyoxiphium panamense Hook. [= Tectaria panamensis (Hook.) R. M. Tryon & A. F. Tryon] For additional synonymy, see Kramer & Green (1991).

Tectaria is a large pantropical genus (ca. 200 species); it is most developed in Southeast Asia and adjacent Pacific islands. There are 25–30 species in the Neotropics, mostly in South America, with seven in Mexico. Three additional species are known from adjacent parts of Guatemala and Belize: T. nicotianifolia (Baker) C. Chr., T. plantaginea (Jacq.) Maxon, and T. rivalis (Mett. ex Kuhn) C. Chr. [misidentified as T. rheosora (Baker) C. Chr. by Stolze, 1981; see Grayum, Phytologia 64: 30– 35. 1987]. Mexican species generally occur on limestone at low or middle elevations, below 1500 m. Tectaria is distinct in its finely netted veins (the areoles sometimes with free included veinlets) and round, abaxial sori (except T. panamensis). It has often been considered most closely related to the free-veined genus Ctenitis (see, e.g., Holttum, 1986), agreeing with that in the non-grooved midribs adaxially and the presence of pluricellular hairs on the blades; however, molecular data (e.g., Hasebe et al., 1995; Cranfill, unpubl. data) suggest that this relationship may be more superficial than real. Some pteridologists have chosen to recognize Tectaria (as well as Ctenitis and a number of segregate tectarioid genera) in a family Tectariaceae (e.g., Moran in Davidse et al., 1995), separate from the Dryopteridaceae, but molecular evidence does not support a family with this circumscription. Dictyoxiphium has been segregated as a monotypic genus, distinct by its linear, dimorphic blades and marginal coenosori. It is very closely allied to Tectaria and crosses with that genus (T. incisa) to form the hybrid “genus” Pleuroderris Maxon (seeWagner et al., 1978 for more details and additional references). The misshapen-spored hybrid, Pleuroderris michleriana (D. C. Eaton) Maxon, has been collected from Guatemala to Colombia and can be expected wherever its two parents co-occur (as in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas). Intermediate, but highly irregular in morphology, the fronds of Pleuroderris range from shallowly lobed to pinnatisect or fully pinnate at base, and the sori are round to elongate and scattered irregularly along and near the segment margins.