Thelypteris puberula
Thelypteris sclerophylla
showy fern, showy maiden fern
stiff maiden fern, stiff star-hair fern
short-creeping to suberect, 5–8 mm diam.
monomorphic, evergreen, clustered, 20–55(–80) cm.
straw-colored, 5–18(–25) cm × 1–3 mm, at base with brown, lanceolate, stellate-hairy scales.
15–40(–55) × 5–10 cm, proximal 2–5(–10) pairs of pinnae gradually reduced, blade gradually narrowed distally to a pinnatifid apex.
18–25 pairs, 2–5(–8) × 1–1.5(–2) cm, deeply serrate to incised nearly 3/4 of width, distal pinnae often strongly adnate;
segments of rather harsh texture, somewhat oblique, rounded-deltate to often acute;
proximal pair of veins from adjacent segments united below sinus with excurrent vein.
round, medial to supramedial;
indusia tan, densely stellate-hairy;
sporangia glabrous.
on both surfaces of numerous, sessile or short-stalked, stellate hairs 0.1–0.2 mm on costae, veins, and blade tissue;
rachises and costae sometimes with longer simple hairs to 0.8 mm abaxially.
= 144.
Thelypteris puberula
Thelypteris sclerophylla
Varieties 2 (1 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
In the flora Thelypteris sclerophylla is known only from Dade County, Florida, where it is rare.
C. Christensen (1913), C. V. Morton (1951), and D. B. Lellinger (1985) have attributed the basionym to Kunze in Sprengel, but Sprengel clearly credited Poeppig, rightly or wrongly. Sprengel's original description also differs in a number of details from that by G. Kunze (Linnaea 9: 92. 1834), so that Kunze's later attribution of the basionym to himself cannot be accepted.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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