Pteris cretica |
Pteridaceae |
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Cretan brake, Cretan brake fern, ribbon fern |
brake family, maidenhair fern family |
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Habit | Plants perennial [annual], on rock or terrestrial, of small (rarely large) stature. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stems | slender, creeping, sparingly scaly; scales dark brown to chestnut brown. |
compact to creeping, branched or unbranched, dictyostelic, bearing hairs and/or scales. |
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Leaves | clustered to closely spaced, to 1 m. |
monomorphic to dimorphic, circinate or noncircinate in bud. |
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Petiole(s) | straw-colored to light brown distally, darker proximally, 10–50 cm, base sparsely scaly. |
usually with persistent scales proximally, lacking spines; vascular bundles 1–several, roundish or crescent-shaped in cross section. |
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Blade(s) | irregularly ovate, primarily and irregularly pedately divided, 10–30 × 6–25 cm; rachis not winged; only terminal pinna decurrent on rachis. |
1–6-pinnate, without laminar buds. |
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Pinnae | 1–3 pairs, well separated, blade often 5-parted with terminal pinna and 2 lateral pairs of pinnae remaining green through winter, not articulate; sterile pinnae to 25 × 0.8–1.5 cm, serrulate; fertile pinnae narrower than sterile pinnae, to ca. 11 mm wide, spiny-serrate; base acute acroscopically and decurrent (sometimes narrowly and barely so) basiscopically, glabrous; proximal pinnae with 1 (rarely 2) basiscopic lobes. |
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Veins | free, simple or forked. |
pinnate or parallel in ultimate segments of blades, simple or forked, free or infrequently anastomosing in complex patterns. |
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Indusia | (when present) formed by reflexed, recurved, or revolute leaf margin (false indusium). |
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Sori | narrow, blade tissue exposed abaxially. |
borne abaxially on veins, often confluent with age and forming a continuous submarginal band, or sporangia densely covering abaxial surface (acrostichoid); receptacle not or only slightly elevated. |
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Sporangia | stalk of 2–3 rows of cells; annulus vertical, interrupted by stalk; spores 64 or 32 (rarely 16) per sporangium. |
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Spores | all 1 kind, brown, black, or gray (rarely yellow), globose to globose-tetrahedral or trigonal, occasionally with prominent equatorial ridge, trilete, or trigonal, variously ornamented (usually cristate or rugose). |
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Gametophytes | green, aboveground, obcordate to reniform, sometimes asymmetric, usually glabrous (glandular-farinose in Notholaena); archegonia and antheridia borne on abaxial surface, antheridia 3-celled. |
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Indument | on petioles, rachises, costae, and blades, rarely absent or commonly of hairs, glands, and/or scales, occasionally of white or yellow farina. |
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Pteris cretica |
Pteridaceae |
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Distribution |
FL; LA; Widely scattered in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide
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Worldwide |
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Discussion | Pteris cretica is almost pantropical in distribution (C. V. Morton 1957). Because this species is so commonly and widely cultivated and appears to escape easily in warmer regions, its native range is uncertain. Young leaves of young plants of Pteris multifida may key to P. cretica because only the terminal pinnae may be decurrent on the rachis as in P. cretica. Juveniles of P. multifida can be separated by proximal pinnae with long-attenuate apices and thinner-textured leaves than P. cretica. Juveniles of P. cretica have proximal pinnae with acute to blunt or nearly rounded apices and thicker-textured leaves. Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Considerable disagreement exists concerning the circumscription and proper name of this family. The taxa comprising the Pteridaceae in this treatment were assigned to the Sinopteridaceae and Pteridaceae by D. B. Lellinger (1985) and were included in five families by R. E. G. Pichi-Sermolli (1977). The broad concept followed here is similar (except for the exclusion of Ceratopteris) to that espoused by R. M. Tryon and A. F. Tryon (1982), who applied the name Pteridaceae to the group. Until very recently, the newer name Adiantaceae was more commonly used. As represented in North America, Pteridaceae comprise three major evolutionary lines (the adiantoids, the pteroids, and the cheilanthoids). Characteristics holding the family together include abaxial (usually submarginal) sori that lack indusia or are protected by a reflexed or revolute leaf margin, spores that are usually globose-tetrahedral and trilete, and chromosome base numbers of 30 or 29 (rarely 27). The xeric-adapted members of the family (particularly the cheilanthoids) have undergone extensive parallel and convergent evolution, and they have frustrated attempts to produce a natural generic classification based on macromorphologic characteristics alone. Although some workers have aggregated species into a few large genera (e.g., J. T. Mickel 1979b), most tend to recognize smaller segregate genera based on a combination of morphologic, chromosomal, and biochemical data. The latter approach seems to provide a more useful, evolutionarily informative classification and is the one adopted here. Aspidotis and Notholaena are maintained here as distinct from Cheilanthes, and three recently described genera (Argyrochosma, Astrolepis, and Pentagramma) have been incorporated into the treatment. The reasons for these changes in generic circumscription are discussed under the individual genera. Genera ca. 40, species ca. 1000 (13 genera, 90 species in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 2. | FNA vol. 2, p. 122. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Pteridaceae > Pteris | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Pycnodoria cretica | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Mant. Pl. 130. (1767) | E. D. M. Kirchner | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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