Skip Navigation
Sign In
  • Home
  • Search
    • Search Collections
    • Map Search
  • Chicago Botanic Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Denver Botanic Gardens
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Desert Botanical Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • NY Botanical Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Sitemap

Pellaea

Pellaea
Family: Pteridaceae
Pellaea image
Max Licher
  • FNA
  • Gleason & Cronquist
  • Resources
Michael D. Windham in Flora of North America (vol. 2)
Plants usually on rock. Stems compact to long-creeping, ascending to horizontal, usually branched; scales brown to tan or often bicolored with dark, central stripe and lighter margins, linear-subulate to lanceolate (rarely ovate), margins dentate, erose, or entire. Leaves monomorphic to somewhat dimorphic, clustered to widely scattered, 2--100 cm. Petiole brown, black, straw-colored, or gray, rounded, flattened or with single longitudinal groove adaxially, glabrous or pubescent, usually with a few scales at base, with single vascular bundle. Blade linear to ovate-deltate, 1--4-pinnate proximally, leathery or rarely somewhat herbaceous, abaxially glabrous, pubescent, or with hairlike scales scattered along costae, adaxially usually glabrous, dull, not striate; rachis straight or flexuous. Ultimate segments of blade usually stalked and free from costae, elliptic, lanceolate to linear, usually more than 4 mm wide; base rounded, truncate, or cordate; stalks often lustrous and dark colored; segment margins reflexed to form confluent, poorly defined, false indusia extending entire length of segment. Veins of ultimate segments free or rarely anastomosing, usually obscure, pinnately branched and divergent distally. False indusia greenish to whitish, narrow, clearly marginal, often concealing the sporangia. Sporangia scattered along veins near segment margins, containing 32 or 64 spores, often intermixed with glands, farina-producing. Spores brown to tan (rarely yellow), tetrahedral-globose, rugose or cristate, lacking prominent equatorial ridge. x = 29.

Pellaea in the broad sense is a diverse, poorly defined assemblage of xeric-adapted ferns (A. R. Smith 1981). Relationships among the North American, neotropical, and Eastern Hemisphere species are unclear, and it seems likely that the genus, as broadly construed by E. B. Copeland (1947) and R. M. Tryon and A. F. Tryon (1982), is polyphyletic. The species included here in Pellaea belong to a closely knit alliance that is usually recognized as a distinct section (sect. Pellaea ). Although the inclusion of P . bridgesii in this group has been questioned (A. F. Tryon 1957), W. H. Wagner Jr. et al. (1983) have shown that the aberrant morphology of this species is simply an extreme expression of evolutionary trends commonly encountered in sect. Pellaea .

Among Western Hemisphere cheilanthoid ferns, species of Pellaea show clear morphologic, chromosomal, and biochemical affinities to Argyrochosma and members of the Cheilanthes alabamensis complex. In fact, the glabrous species of Argyrochosma ( A . jonesii and A . microphylla ) are commonly misidentified as Pellaea . These species are easily recognizable, however, because they have a combination of concolored stem scales and small ultimate segments (less than 4 mm wide).

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Lvs firm, evergreen, glabrous or sparsely hairy, 1-4 times pinnate, with free veins, the pinnae and often also the pinnules narrowed to a minutely or evidently petiolate base; ultimate segments folded downward along the midrib under water-stress, concealing the lower surface; petioles wiry, often breaking off well above the ground to leave a persistent base; sori borne on the vein-ends just within the margins of the lf, often confluent, the point of attachment covered by the reflexed margins, which form a continuous false indusium, but the mature sporangia often conspicuously exserted; small, ±xeromorphic ferns, many spp. (including ours) with short, branched rhizomes forming a multicipital caudex that is so densely beset with long, narrow, brown scales as to appear brown-woolly. 85, New World, S. Afr., and New Zealand.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
<< 1 - 50 taxa >>
Pellaea allosuroides
Media resource of Pellaea allosuroides
Map not
Available
Pellaea andromedifolia
Media resource of Pellaea andromedifolia
Map not
Available
Pellaea angolensis
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Pellaea angulosa
Media resource of Pellaea angulosa
Map not
Available
Pellaea arsenii
Media resource of Pellaea arsenii
Map not
Available
Pellaea atropurpurea
Media resource of Pellaea atropurpurea
Map not
Available
Pellaea boivinii
Media resource of Pellaea boivinii
Map not
Available
Pellaea brachyptera
Media resource of Pellaea brachyptera
Map not
Available
Pellaea breweri
Media resource of Pellaea breweri
Map not
Available
Pellaea bridgesii
Media resource of Pellaea bridgesii
Map not
Available
Pellaea calomelanos
Media resource of Pellaea calomelanos
Map not
Available
Pellaea compacta
Media resource of Pellaea compacta
Map not
Available
Pellaea cordifolia
Media resource of Pellaea cordifolia
Map not
Available
Pellaea cymbiformis
Media resource of Pellaea cymbiformis
Map not
Available
Pellaea dealbata
Media resource of Pellaea dealbata
Map not
Available
Pellaea densa
Media resource of Pellaea densa
Map not
Available
Pellaea doniana
Media resource of Pellaea doniana
Map not
Available
Pellaea dura
Media resource of Pellaea dura
Map not
Available
Pellaea falcata
Media resource of Pellaea falcata
Map not
Available
Pellaea gastonyi
Media resource of Pellaea gastonyi
Map not
Available
Pellaea glabella
Media resource of Pellaea glabella
Map not
Available
Pellaea glauca
Media resource of Pellaea glauca
Map not
Available
Pellaea gleichenioides
Media resource of Pellaea gleichenioides
Map not
Available
Pellaea hastata
Media resource of Pellaea hastata
Map not
Available
Pellaea intermedia
Media resource of Pellaea intermedia
Map not
Available
Pellaea intramarginalis
Media resource of Pellaea intramarginalis
Map not
Available
Pellaea involuta
Media resource of Pellaea involuta
Map not
Available
Pellaea leucomelas
Media resource of Pellaea leucomelas
Map not
Available
Pellaea longipilosa
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Pellaea lyngholmii
Media resource of Pellaea lyngholmii
Map not
Available
Pellaea mucronata
Media resource of Pellaea mucronata
Map not
Available
Pellaea muelleri
Media resource of Pellaea muelleri
Map not
Available
Pellaea nana
Media resource of Pellaea nana
Map not
Available
Pellaea nitidula
Media resource of Pellaea nitidula
Map not
Available
Pellaea nivea
Media resource of Pellaea nivea
Map not
Available
Pellaea notabilis
Media resource of Pellaea notabilis
Map not
Available
Pellaea oaxacana
Media resource of Pellaea oaxacana
Map not
Available
Pellaea occidentalis
Media resource of Pellaea occidentalis
Map not
Available
Pellaea ornithopus
Media resource of Pellaea ornithopus
Map not
Available
Pellaea ovata
Media resource of Pellaea ovata
Map not
Available
Pellaea paradoxa
Media resource of Pellaea paradoxa
Map not
Available
Pellaea pectiniformis
Media resource of Pellaea pectiniformis
Map not
Available
Pellaea pinnata
Media resource of Pellaea pinnata
Map not
Available
Pellaea pringlei
Media resource of Pellaea pringlei
Map not
Available
Pellaea prolifera
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Pellaea pteroides
Media resource of Pellaea pteroides
Map not
Available
Pellaea pumila
Media resource of Pellaea pumila
Map not
Available
Pellaea regnelliana
Media resource of Pellaea regnelliana
Map not
Available
Pellaea reynoldsii
Media resource of Pellaea reynoldsii
Map not
Available
Pellaea ribae
Media resource of Pellaea ribae
Map not
Available
Institute for Museum and Library Services KU BI Logo Logo for the Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MG-70-19-0057-19].

EcoFlora is part of the SEINet Portal Network. Learn more here.

Powered by Symbiota.