Pineland Fern

Stems ca. 2 mm diam. Leaves partially dimorphic (sporangia limited to proximal pair of pinnae), 17--85 × 7--35 cm, sterile leaves (excluding erect fertile pinnae) 17--60 cm. Petiole straw-colored to chestnut brown, 1/2--2/3 length of leaf, 1--1.4 mm wide, hirsute to glabrous. Blade deltate, 3-pinnate, leathery. Pinnae 10--18 pairs, alternate to subopposite, segments oblanceolate, base cuneate, margins minutely denticulate, apex obtuse, pilose with stiff white hairs. Fertile pinnae usually taller than sterile blades. Spores with ridges ± parallel, distant. 2 n = 76, 114, 152.

Fla.; Mexico; West Indies in the Antilles, Trinidad; Central America; South America to Ecuador and Brazil.

Terrestrial on open to lightly shaded, rocky slopes and in hammocks and pine woods, often on limestone; 0--30m.

Osmunda adiantifolia Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 1065. 1753

Anemia adiantifolia (I,.) Sw. Syn. Fil. 157. 1806
Osmunda adiantifolia I/. Sp. PI. 1065. 1753.
Osmunda asplenifoUa Savigny, in I^am. Encyc. 4 : 652. 1797.
Omithopteris adiantifolia Bernh. Neues Jour. Bot,. Schrad. V: 50. 1806.
Anemia asplenifoUa Sw. Syn. Fil. 157. 1806.
Anemia carvifolia Presl, Rel. Haenk. 1 : 74. 1825.
Anemia adiantifolia asplenifoUa Hook. & Grev. Ic. Fil. 1 : pi. 16. 1829.
Rhizome creeping, closely clothed with dark-brown or blackish acicular turgid hairs ; fronds dorsal, distichous, approximate, the stipe of the fertile ones usually not equaling the sterile fronds. Sterile fronds ascending or arching, 15-70 cm. long; stipe usually a little longer than the lamina, brownishstramineous from a darker base or rarely castaneous throughout, clothed with dark to lightish flaccid hairs, glabrescent except near the base ; lamina ovate-deltoid or subpentagonal, 7-35 cm. long, 4-28 cm, broad at the base, bi-tripinnate, or in large forms deeply quadripinnatifid at the base, gradually simpler above, the upper pinnae closer, sessile, very gradually reduced, the uppermost adnate, finally confluent at the elongate acuminate apex; pinnae numerous, contiguous or imbricate, slightly ascending, all but the upper ones distinctly stalked, in outline truncate above at the base and usually contiguous with the rachis, excisocuneate below, the pinnules wholly anadromous ; lowermost pinnae the largest, deltoid-lanceolate, often elongate, inequilateral by the development of the inferior basal pinnules, these deltoidlanceolate or ovate-lanceolate from a broad base, acute, fully pinnate (segments 1-6 pairs, the basal ones often deeply pinnatifid), the anterior pinnules approximate or contiguous, excisocuneate below, inequilateral, ovate-lanceolate to ovate-oblong or narrowly subrhombic, all but the outermost deeply pinnatifid or incised, these oblong-obovate (often narrowly so), obtuse, the ultimate segments of the lamina in general similar to these, wholly anadromous ; rachises longpubescent throughout with slender mostly whitish hairs ; leaf-tissue usually coriaceous, lustrous upon both surfaces, paler and glandular below, pilose upon both surfaces, especially between the veins, finally glabrescent above ; margins erose-denticulate, thickened. Fertile fronds mostly 15-85 cm. long, the lamina about one half to one fourth the length of the frond, similar to that of the sterile frond or usually not pentagonal; fertile (basal) pinnae erect, remote, usually shorter than the sterile lamina, sometimes exceeding it a little ; panicle usually as long as the stalk, sometimes 2-4 times as long, the divisions either laxly disposed or compact ; spores cristate, the ridges flexuous and undulate.
Type locality : Near Petit Goave, Haiti.
Distribution : Peninsular Florida, the Bahamas, and the West Indies generally to Trinidad ; less common in Mexico and Guatemala ; known also from a single locality in Brazil and one in Colombia.