| Pteridophyte | Literature for Asplenium insiticium
Palmer, 2003; Lorence & Wagner, 2019. |
| Aspleniaceae -- The Spleenwort Family | Bibliography |
| Asplenium insiticium | |
Common name(s): spleenwort, `anali`i, pi`ipi`i lau manamana |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Hawaiian Islands, ranging in Oceania to Fiji and New Caledonia.In the Hawaiian Islands, indigenous to Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Terrestrial, sometimes epipetric or epiphytic. Rhizomes short-creeping, ca. 1.5 cm in diameter, apex densely scaly; scales of rhizomes and stipe base brown, narrowly lanceolate or subulate, 4–5 mm long, 0.5–0.6 mm wide, margins subentire. |
|
| Leaves |
Fronds 5–10 per plant, erect or arching, often, but not always, proliferous with 1 or more plantlets distally on rachis near apex or sometimes on costae of pinnae; stipe 8–45 cm long, 2–3.5 mm in diameter, shallowly to deeply grooved adaxially, dull brown to dark brown, scaly; blade 2-pinnate, triangular-ovate or oblong-ovate, 20–75 cm long, 7–33 cm wide, widest at base, tapering to pinnatifid non-conform apex, coriaceous, rachis and young pinnae with dark brown, slender, curved, filiform-subulate scales to 1 mm long and irregular and appressed pale brown scurfy scales, glabrescent, rachis deeply grooved adaxially; pinnae 10–22 on each side, stalked, 6.5–16 cm long, 1.5–5.5 cm wide, ovate-oblong, apex pinnatifid, acute or acuminate, pinnules ovate to obovate, to 2–3.5 cm long, 1.2–1.8 cm wide, base unequally cuneate, costules weak or indistinct, margin prominently toothed, teeth acute; veins radiating in fan-shaped fashion from base of pinnule, sometimes forking before reaching margin, prominent adaxially. |
|
| Sori |
Sori 4–10 per pinnule, linear, 0.5–1.5 cm long; indusium thin, light colored, opening toward rachis. |
|
| Notes |
Fronds of A. insiticium usually have a proliferation near the tip of the rachis or on rachis of one or more pinnae. The single frond of the holotype from Hawaii Island is not proliferous despite being drawn with two gemmae in the protologue [M.G. Price 8 Apr. 1986, in litt.]. Non-proliferous collections of this species have been incorrectly identified as A. acuminatum or A. cuneatum, species which do not occur in the Marquesas. |
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| Contributor |
David Lorence |
