Lepisorus longifolius

(Blume) Holttum

(no common name)

Polypodiaceae

Lepisorus longifolius is a species of fern in the family Polypodiaceae. It is widespread over southeastern Asia.

Lepisorus longifolius

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Description

Lepisorus longifolius is a shortly creeping, epiphytic plant. Rhizomes are 3 to 4.5 mm thick, covered in 3.5 to 4 mm long, hairy scales that are clathrate (translucent and net-like). Leaves are long and simple, up to 70 cm long and 1 to 4.5 cm wide on a petiole that is up to 8 cm long. They are leathery and glabrous (not hairy), with inconspicuous veins. Sori are borne on the lower surface of the leaf, in two rows on either side, within 1 to 2 mm of the margin. They are round or elongated, 2 mm wide and up to 10 mm long, sunken into the surface, Sori are covered with scales, called paraphyses, with two types: dark, peltate scales (attached at the center, like a mushroom), and irregular, brown scales (Kalkman and Nooteboom 1998).

Lepisorus longifolius is a member of the Lepisorus clade, a group of mostly Asian ferns with clathrate scales, linear to lanceolate simple leaves, and sori covered with scale-like paraphyses when young. Despite this, the genus-level (and sometimes species-level) taxonomic classification has been notoriously difficult and unstable, changing from author to author, because there are so few characteristics upon which to classify them. Lepisorus longifolius may be placed in its own genus as Paragramma longifolia, or in a section of Lepisorus (Zhao et al. 2019), as it is sister to the rest of the clade (Zhao et al. 2019). A second species, Lepisorus balteiformis, is allied with it, but has round sori that are closer to the midrib and not the margins. It is endemic to New Guinea (Kalkman and Nooteboom 1998).

Uses

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Lepisorus longifolius is typically an epiphyte, growing on other plants, although it may occasionally grow from the ground, in forests, at altitudes of up to 800 to 1350 m (Kalkman and Nooteboom 1998). It is native to Southeast Asia, in Myanmar, peninsular Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, peninsular Malaysia, and the western Indonesian Archipelago including Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Sulawesi (Hassler 2022).

Distribution

Status

References

Hassler, M. 2022. World Ferns. Synonymic Checklist and Distribution of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World. Version 13.2; last update 2022 July 2. [accessed 2022 Jul 12]. <a>www.worldplants.de/ferns/</a> Kalkman, C., and Nooteboom, H. P., eds. 1998. Flora Malesiana. Series II—Ferns and Fern Allies. Volume 3. Polypodiaceae through Plagiogyriaceae. Leiden: Rijksherbarium/Hortus Botanicus, Publication Department. Zhao, C. F., Wei, R., Zhang, X. C., and Xiang, Q. P. 2019. Backbone phylogeny of Lepisorus (Polypodiaceae) and a novel infrageneric classification based on the total evidence from plastid and morphological data. Cladistics, 36: 235–258.

Description

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