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shoestring fern

Habit Plants epiphytic. Plants epiphytic or on rock.
Roots

abundant, covered with brown hairs.

Stems

short-creeping, branched, densely scaly;

scales brown, apex attenuate, filiform.

short-creeping, branched, covered with scales with conspicuously thickened, clathrate cell walls.

Gemmae

tapering at ends, end cells not swollen;

body cells 4–16, rhizoid primordia on each end cell, often on 1–2 medial cells.

uniseriate, 2–5 mm, composed of 2–16 dark green body cells and 0–4 almost colorless, smaller rhizoid primordia cells.

Leaves

10–60 cm × 1–3 mm, petioles indistinct.

simple, entire, petioles indistinct.

Veins

(visible in cleared leaves) anastomosing on each side of midrib in row of long, polygonal areolae without included veinlets.

Indusia

absent, sporangia interspersed with branched soral paraphyses.

Sori

in submarginal groove on each side of midrib.

Sporangia

protected by soral paraphyses that lack dilated terminal cells.

Spores

monolete.

monolete or trilete.

Gametophytes

much branched.

persistent, ribbonlike, much branched, and clone-forming by vegetative reproduction.

Epidermis

with spicular cells.

2n

= 120.

Vittaria lineata

Vittariaceae

Habitat Epiphytic, most commonly on trunks of palms (Sabal palmetto Loddiges), in moist woods and especially along streams
Elevation 0–100 m (0–300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
FL; GA; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Worldwide in tropics and subtropics
Discussion

Sporophytes, now extirpated, once occurred on rock cliffs at a single site in Lincoln County, east central Georgia. Vittaria lineata is now known outside of Florida only in Camden County, in southeastern Georgia. Gametophytes commonly form the dominant cover on moist logs and tree trunks, especially the bases of Sabal palmetto palms, within the range of the sporophyte. Such populations usually contain numerous small, sexually produced sporophytes.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

In species outside the flora, leaves may be much shorter and broader with more than one row of areolae and several soral lines on each side of the midrib. Rarely veins are free, and sporangia are scattered over the abaxial surface. Gametophyte gemmae may be much longer than found in the flora, may be platelike, or may be absent.

Vegetative proliferation of gametophytes of this family allows the gametophyte generation to persist after sporophytes are produced. Although sporophytes of only one species, Vittaria lineata, are known in the flora, at least two additional species are represented by persistent gametophytes. Because sporophytes of V. graminifolia may occur in the flora, characteristics of its sporophyte are included in the key to species.

Genera ca. 10, species ca. 100 (1 genus, 3 species in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 2. FNA vol. 2, p. 187. Author: Donald R. Farrar.
Parent taxa Vittariaceae > Vittaria
Sibling taxa
V. appalachiana, V. graminifolia
Subordinate taxa
Synonyms Pteris lineata
Name authority (Linnaeus) Smith Ching
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