Woodwardia areolata
Woodwardia virginica
netted chain fern
Virginia chain fern, woodwardie de virginie
long-creeping, slender;
scales brown, many, broadly lanceolate.
long-creeping, ropelike;
scales dark brown, few, triangular.
dimorphic, deciduous, few, well separated;
sterile leaves 40-58 cm, fertile leaves 49-70 cm.
monomorphic, deciduous, numerous, well separated, 50-100 cm.
reddish brown proximally, straw-colored distally;
base not swollen, with sparsely set brown scales.
dark purple to black proximally, straw-colored distally, base lustrous and swollen, glabrate.
bright green, generally lanceolate, scaly-glandular upon emergence but soon glabrate;
sterile leaves pinnatifid, 13-26 cm;
fertile leaves pinnate, sharply contracted, 20-27 cm.
greenish, lanceolate, 28-60 cm, bearing mixture of glands and scales upon emergence with glands persisting.
not articulate to rachis, arranged in 7-12 alternate pairs;
sterile pinnae lanceolate, 3-11 × 1-2.5 cm;
fertile pinnae contracted, linear, 3-11 × 0.2-0.5 cm.
articulate to rachis, arranged in 12-23 evenly distributed pairs, linear to narrowly lanceolate, deeply pinnatifid;
middle pinnae 6-16 × 1-3.5 cm.
anastomosing into 2 or more rows of areoles between costae and margin, free only at blade margin.
anastomosing to form a single row of areoles, then free to margin.
± membranous, lacking thickened cells, tucked under sporangia, not recurving but mostly disintegrating with age.
± membranous, lacking thickened cells, freely spreading, often hidden by dehisced sporangia.
linear-oblong, deeply sunken into blades, nearly occupying full breadth of blade.
elongate, linear, superficial, often appearing confluent upon dehiscence of sporangia.
= 70.
= 70.
Woodwardia areolata
Woodwardia virginica
Woodwardia areolata is most abundant on the coastal plain of the eastern United States, scattered in the Ouachita and Boston mountains, Ozark and Cumberland plateaus, and the Piedmont, but not in the high Appalachians, the heavy gumbo soils of the Mississippi Valley, or the limestone regions of the Interior Low Plateaus. It apparently has been extirpated in Maine where it is known only from specimens collected in the 1860s.
Features such as extreme leaf dimorphism, sunken sori, and expanded persistent indusia set Woodwardia areolata apart from all others in the genus. The existence of closely related transitional species in Asia, however, makes generic segregation uncertain. Those who wish to recognize a monotypic generic segregate based on Woodwardia areolata must coin a new name because Lorinseria C. Presl (1849) is an orthographic variant of Lorinsera Opiz (1839). For a detailed discussion of the ecology and geography of this species, see R. Cranfill (1983). Sterile specimens of this species are sometimes confused with Onoclea sensibilis.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Woodwardia virginica is primarily confined to the coastal plain of eastern North America. It is not likely to be confused with any other species of the genus, but it is sometimes mistaken for Thelypteris palustris (Linnaeus) Schott, T. interrupta (Willdenow) K. Iwatsuki, or Osmunda cinnamomea. It may be distinguished from the first by having netted venation, from the second by having linear sori, and from Osmunda by having blackish petiole bases.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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