| Pteridophyte | Literature for Asplenium aethiopicum
Palmer, 2003. |
| Aspleniaceae -- The Spleenwort Family | Bibliography |
| Asplenium aethiopicum | |
Common name(s): spleenwort, `iwa`iwa a Kane |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Pantropical.In the Hawaiian Islands, indigenous to Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habitat | Mesic to wet forests, shrublands, and occasionally in dry exposed areas. | |
| Elevation | 305-1950 m |
|
| Habit |
Terrestrial, occasionally epiphytic or epipetric, small to medium-sized; rhizomes short-creeping to decumbent, 0.8-1.5 cm diameter, heavily covered with dark brown, glossy, lanceolate scales with curly, sometimes hairlike tips. |
|
| Leaves |
Fronds closely set, erect or arching, (12-) 20-60 x 5-14 cm, not proliferous; stipe about ½ frond length, dark brown, scales at base sparse, linear-lanceolate, dark brown; blade 1- to 2-pinnate-pinnatifid, lanceolate, tips pinnatifid, acute; rachises and costae grooved, sparsely to heavily clothed with hairlike scales; pinnae 6-16 pairs, short-stalked to adnate, subopposite to alternate; ultimate segments adnate, fan-shaped (flabellate), especially acroscopic basal segments, mostly with truncate tips, without central axis, very variable in shape, often laciniate, tips often lobed, distal margins with many small, obtuse teeth; veins forked in fan shape without a central axis, ending in marginal teeth, minimally to not translucent. |
|
| Sori |
Sori 2-8 per segment, spreading in a fan shape, up to 1 cm long, some sori pericostal; indusia wide, same color as frond. |
|
| Notes |
Latin aethiopicus, in 1768 a general term for the entire African continent, The type material was described from a South African collection. |
|
| Contributor |
Sally Eichhorn |