Flora of North America species comparison

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Pentagramma triangularis

gold fern, gold-back fern, goldenback fern
Petiole

chestnut brown to dark brown, somewhat shiny, glabrous or sometimes viscid-glandular or rarely somewhat white-farinose proximally.
Blade

thin and herbaceous to thick and leathery, abaxially densely farinose, farina white or yellow, adaxially bright green to yellowish green when fresh, glabrous to glandular or viscid.

Pentagramma triangularis
Habitat Chaparral, pine and oak woodlands.
Elevation 100–900 m (300–3000 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Pentagramma triangularis occurs in rock crevices and at the base of overhanging boulders in drainages and on slopes and roadbanks. Occasional plants in which the farina is nearly absent may be encountered. These have been described as Pityrogramma triangularis var. viridis Hoover, a name of uncertain application that appears to refer to misshapen-spored hybrids of various parentage within the Pentagramma triangularis complex.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Leaves viscid-glandular adaxially; distal pinnae mostly entire; proximal basiscopic lobes of basal pinnae entire to undulate or crenate.
subsp. viscosa
1. Leaves glabrous or with scattered yellowish capitate glands adaxially, not viscid-glandular; distal pinnae mostly regularly lobed; proximal basiscopic lobes of basal pinnae pinnatifid, often deeply so.
→ 2
2. Leaves with scattered yellowish, capitate, nonfarinose glands adaxially, white-farinose abaxially.
subsp. maxonii
2. Leaves glabrous adaxially, yellow- or white- farinose abaxially.
→ 3
3. Farina light to bright yellow.
subsp. triangularis
3. Farina white.
subsp. semipallida
Source FNA vol. 2, p. 151.
Parent taxa Pteridaceae > Pentagramma
Sibling taxa
P. pallida
Subordinate taxa
P. triangularis subsp. maxonii, P. triangularis subsp. semipallida, P. triangularis subsp. triangularis, P. triangularis subsp. viscosa
Synonyms Gymnogramma triangularis, Pityrogramma triangularis
Name authority (Kaulfuss) Yatskievych: Amer. Fern J. 80: 15. (1990)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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