Wright's Flowering Fern

Anemia wrightii has been misidentified in Florida as A . cicutaria Kunze ex Sprengel (of Mexico in Yucatan; West Indies in the Bahamas, Cuba; and Central America in Guatemala), but that species has 3-pinnate sterile blades, abundant blade hairs, and fertile leaves that are more open with 4--5 pairs of long-petiolulate pinnae.

Stems ca. 1 mm diam. Leaves entirely dimorphic. Sterile leaves 4--10 × 1.4--2.5 cm. Petiole green to straw-colored, 1/2--3/4 length of leaf, ca. 0.3 mm wide, glabrous. Blade deltate, 2-pinnate, papery to somewhat leathery. Pinnae 2--4 pairs, alternate to subopposite, segments oblanceolate, base cuneate, margins minutely denticulate, apex obtuse, sparsely pilose with stiff white hairs. Fertile leaves 6--25 cm, much taller than sterile leaves. Petiole 3/4--9/10 length of leaf. Pinnae compact, short-petiolulate, 1--6 mm. Spores with ridges anastomosing.

Fla.; West Indies in Bahamas, Cuba.

Rare around exposed to lightly shaded solution holes and limestone sinks; 0m.

Anemia wrightii Baker, in Hook. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 435. 1868
Orniihopteris Wrightii Millsp. Field Col. Mus. Bot. 3 : 14 (excl. description). 1903.
Rhizome short-creeping, densely clothed with minute brownish hairs ; fronds dimorphous, obscurely distichous, closely fasciculate, the stipe of the fertile fronds far exceeding the sterile fronds. Sterile fronds 5-11 cm. long, laxly ascending ; stipes slender, stramineous from a darker base, 3-7 cm. long ; lamina narrowly ovate or somewhat deltoid, 3-6 cm. long, 2-3 cm. broad, bipinnate at the base ; pinnae 3 or 4 pairs, remote, decreasing gradually toward the apex of -the lamina, the upper ones narrowly cuneate, strongly ascending and confluent at the acutish apex, the middle and lower ones short-petiolate and slightly ascending ; basal pinnae ovate from an unequally cuneate base, with 1 or 2 pairs of subsessile narrowly obovate long-cuneate segments, these inciso-dentate at the apex ; veins elevated on both surfaces; leaf-tissue firmly membranous, opaque upon both surfaces, paler and sparsely glandular below, very sparingly pilose both above and below between the 4
veins. Fertile fronds 15-25 cm. long, the lamina one-third to one-sixth as long as the slender subflexuous stramineous stipe ; pinnae alternate, remote, petiolate, the lowermost 5-15 mm. long ; pinnules short and close, with few pilose segments ; spores reticulate-striate.
Type locality : Eastern Cuba.
Distribution : Confined to Cuba. The Yucatan plant referred to this species is A. cicutaria.