| Pteridophyte | Literature for Asplenium adiantum-nigrum
Palmer, 2003. |
| Aspleniaceae -- The Spleenwort Family | Bibliography |
| Asplenium adiantum-nigrum | |
Common name(s): spleenwort, `iwa`iwa |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Native to Europe (where it is most common), Africa, Eurasia, Mexico (Chihuahua), the southwestern United States, Pacific islands, and Taiwan. It apparently originated in Europe, as a fertile hybrid (an allotetraploid) between Asplenium cuneifolium and A. oropteris.In the Hawaiian Islands, indigenous to Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habitat | Dry lava and cinders and also in open woods and shrublands. | |
| Elevation | 350-4000 m |
|
| Habit |
Terrestrial, small to medium-sized; rhizomes decumbent, tips thickly covered with old stipes. |
|
| Leaves |
Fronds 8-40 x 5-12 cm, not proliferous; stipes clustered, shiny, lower stipes dark brown, distal rachises light green, colors remaining distinct and entirely separate over several cm, color of stipe gradually tapering to a point and ending in distal stipes or rachises; scales at bases linear, dark brown, shiny, with hair-like tips; blade 2- to 3-pinnate, elongate-triangular, deltate to ovate, occasionally ovate-lanceolate, pale green, subcoriaceous, lustrous, basal pinnae longest; pinnae 8-12 pairs, alternate, stalked, deltate to deltate-lanceolate; pinnules short-stalked, lanceolate, stalks more or less winged, margins lobed to finely dentate at segment tips; veins free, forked. |
|
| Sori |
Sori plentiful, medial, 3 mm or less long, often overlapping, older sori covering entire abaxial surface; indusia thin. |
|
| Notes |
Greek adiantos, unwetted, + Latin nigrum, black or dark, possibly referring to the dark stipe. |
|
| Contributor |
Sally Eichhorn |