Polypodium heterophyllum L.

  • Authority

    Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

  • Family

    Polypodiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Polypodium heterophyllum L.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Epiphytic or epilithic fern. Rhizome filiform, wide-creeping, 0.5 mm wide, branched, densely clothed with tawny to reddish brown, denticulate, linear-attenuate scales, these 5-7 mm long, peltately attached far above the narrowed base. Fronds distant, extremely variable in form, glabrous; stipes 0.1-1.5 cm long marginate, naked. Blades dimorphic, simple, membranous; sterile blades oval or elliptic to narrowly elliptic, 1-3 cm long, or lanceolate to linear, 3-12 x 0.8-1.5 cm, narrowed at both ends; margins subentire, sinuate, or less often irregularly crenate to deeply incised; fertile blades mostly narrower than the sterile ones and more uniform, sometimes to 16 cm long; veins partly reticulate, forming 2 rows of areoles on either side of the rachis, the outer ones each with a single, included, free veinlet, the outermost veins partly reticulate, with many free, slightly enlarged veinlettips not reaching the margins. Sori uniseriate, round, medial, each located at the tip of a free areolar veinlet; paraphyses brown, few, hairlike, more than 1 cell wide at base.

  • Discussion

    Polypodium serpens Sw., Prodr. 131. 1788, non G. Forst., 1786. Anapeltis serpens (Sw.) J. Sm., Cat. Cult. Ferns 5. 1857. Polypodium swartzii Baker in Hook. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 357. 1868 (based on Polypodium serpens Sw., 1788, non G. Forst., 1786). Polypodium exiguum Heward, Mag. Nat. Hist., n.s., 2: 458. 1838, non Griseb., 1864, nee Fee, 1869. Phymatodes exiguum (Heward) Underw., Torreya 3: 18. 1903.

  • Distribution

    Occasional, creeping on rocks or epiphytic in moist forests or in moist pockets in dry forests. Bordeaux Mountain (A1907), White Cliffs (A2037). Also on St. Croix and Virgin Gorda; Florida, Bahamas, Greater Antilles, Cayman Islands, and the northern Lesser Antilles.

    West Indies| Cayman Islands South America| Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Grand Bahama Bahamas South America| Florida United States of America North America| Virgin Gorda Virgin Islands South America| Saint Croix Virgin Islands of the United States South America|