Polypodium lycopodioides 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 lycopodioides L.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Epiphytic fern. Rhizome slender, cordlike, wide-creeping, densely clothed with lance- or linear-attenuate, hair-pointed scales, these 6-10 mm long, reddish brown at first, becoming bicolorous with age, peltately attached and with loosely ciliate margins. Fronds simple, distant, somewhat dimorphic; stipes very short or lacking. Sterile blades linear-lanceolate to ligulate, 5-20 x 1-2.5 cm, narrowed at both ends, the margins entire or slightly sinuate, narrowly cartilaginous and flat or minutely revolute; veins reticulate, forming a row of polygonal areoles mostly without included free veinlets along either side of rachis, then a series of much larger areoles of irregular shape, these mostly with to 6 included free veinlets, then a third uneven series of smaller polygonal areoles; tissue firm to leathery and semi-opaque; fertile blades often narrower than the sterile ones, elliptic to linear, 0.5-1 cm broad. Sori uniseriate, round, medial or supramedial, terminal on several inwardly pointing tips of free veinlets in the largest series of areoles; paraphyses few, concealed, hairlike.

  • Distribution

    Epiphytic on trees in moist forests. Upper slopes and summit of Bordeaux Mountain (P40434). Also on Tortola; pantropical.

    Tortola Virgin Islands South America| Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America|