Flora of North America species comparison

slender, short-creeping, densely scaly;

scales dark reddish brown to chestnut brown.

erect or creeping, branched;

scales pale brown to black, concolored, elongate, margins entire.

clustered, 1–6 dm.

monomorphic, clustered or closely spaced, 1–20 dm.

pale or brownish, 5–30 cm, scaly proximally, otherwise glabrous.

straw-colored, green, brownish red to purple black, longitudinally ridged, 2–3-grooved adaxially, scaly at base, glabrous or scaly distally, with 1 (less often 2 or more) vascular bundle.

oblong to oblanceolate, irregularly and pedately divided proximally (as in Pteris cretica) and pinnately divided distally, 10–35 × 13–25 cm;

rachis slightly and evenly winged, wing constricted above each pinna pair.

oblong to lanceolate to deltate, 1–4-pinnate, herbaceous to leathery, abaxially and adaxially glabrous or sometimes pubescent or scaly, adaxially dull, not striate;

rachis straight.

of blade sessile to short-stalked, linear to oblong-lanceolate, 1.5–8 mm wide;

base truncate or narrowed to stalk, stalk when present green, not lustrous;

margins plane or reflexed to form false indusia.

3–7 pairs, widely spaced, distal pinnae simple, adnate and decurrent to rachis;

pinnae remaining green through winter, not articulate to rachis, lanceolate to linear;

sterile pinnae wider than fertile pinnae (to ca. 1.2 cm), margins irregularly serrate to serrulate;

fertile pinnae mostly less than 5 mm, margins entire to serrate at apex;

adaxial costae with sparse, septate hairs;

proximal pinnae with 1–4 elongate basal segments.

free, simple or forked.

in leaves conspicuous, free (except in sori) and forking well above base of segment, or highly anastomosing.

pale, scarious, covering sori.

narrow, blade tissue exposed abaxially.

intramarginal, sori usually continuous except at pinna or segment apex and sinuses, paraphyses present.

brown, trilete, tetrahedral, rugate and/or tuberculate, usually with prominent equatorial flange.

= 29.

= 116.