Name
Identification
Cyathea deckenii Kuhn [family CYATHEACEAE ] (stored under name); Verified by Not on sheet.,
Related name
- Cyathea deckenii
Flora
Entry for Cyathea manniana Hook. [family CYATHEACEAE]
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical East Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical East Africa, page 1, (2005) Author: Peter J. Edwards
Names
Cyathea manniana Hook. [family CYATHEACEAE], in Hook. & Bak., Fil.: 21 (1865); F.D.-O.A.: 17 (1929); Tardieu in Mem. I.F.A.N. 28: 5, t. 6/3–5 (1953); Alston, Ferns W Trop. Afr.: 27, t. 8 (1959); Schelpe in F.Z. Pterid.: 72, t. 24b (1970), excl. C. deckenii Kuhn.; Holttum in K.B. 36 (3): 472 (1981); Burrows, S. Afr. Ferns: 87, fig. 86 (1990); K.T.S.L.: 39, map (1994); U.K.W.F.: 24 (1994). Type: Equatorial Guinea, Bioko [Fernando Po], Mann 363 (K!, syn.) & Cameroon Mts, Mann 1392 (K!, syn.)
Cyathea deckenii Kuhn [family CYATHEACEAE], in v.d. Decken, Reisen, Bot. 3, 3: 57 (1879); T.T.C.L.: 179 (1949); I.T.U.: 103, photo. 15 (1952); Holttum in K.B. 36 (3): 471 (1981). Type: Tanzania, Mt Kilimanjaro, Dschogge region (?= Chagga?), v. d. Decken & Karsten 72 (B, holo.; K, photo!)
Cyathea usambarensis Hieron. [family CYATHEACEAE], P.O.A. C: 88 (1895); F.D.-O.A.: 17 (1930). Type: Tanzania, Lushoto District: Usambara Mts, Shagayu Forest at Mbaramu, Holst 2498 (B!, holo., K!, iso.)
Cyathea laurentiorum Christ [family CYATHEACEAE], in De Wild., Miss. E. Laurent 1: 14 (1905). Type: Congo (Kinshasa), Butala swamp, Laurent s.n. (BR, holo.)
Cyathea sellae Pirotta [family CYATHEACEAE], in Ann. Bot. Roma 7: 173 (1908). Type: Uganda, Ruwenzori, Mubuku Valley, Nakitava to Bihunga, Duc. Abruzzi Exped. s.n. (RO, holo.)
Alsophila manniana (Hook.) Tryon [family CYATHEACEAE], in Contr. Gray Herb. 200: 30 (1970)
Alsophila deckenii (Kuhn) Tryon [family CYATHEACEAE], in Contr. Gray Herb. 200: 30 (1970)
Cyathea manniana [family CYATHEACEAE], sensu Schelpe, F.Z. Pterid.: 72 (1970) pro parte
Information
Trunk 0.3–9 m tall, 10–15 cm in diameter, dark brown to almost black, throughout with long-decurrent appressed spiny stipe bases, in older trees the lower stem eventually smooth. Fronds 5–10 in number, to 4 m long; stipe brown, 25–90 cm long, bearing conical warts or black spines 2–4 mm long; scales medium to dark reddish brown, to 20 mm long and 6 mm wide near the base, margins fragile with irregularly projecting oblique thin-walled cells. Lamina dark green, 2-pinnate, 3-pinnatifid or 3-pinnate, 0.9–3 m long, 0.9–1.3 m wide; basal pinnae not or little reduced, long stalked; rachis spiny towards its base, with (12–)35–40 falcate pinnae on each side; largest pinnae 45–75 cm long; largest pinnules 6–13 cm long and 1–2.2 cm wide, ± glaucous beneath, basal pair of lobes free, remaining pinnules lobed almost to the costa, the lobes crenate; costules 2.5–4 mm apart; veins 10–13 pairs, lower and middle ones of large pinnules twice forked, distal ones forked or simple. Scales and hairs on pinnules: lower surface of costae at first covered by broad flat light- to mid-brown scales of all sizes, the larger ones with a dark median patch, all with fringed edges, the scales deciduous on old fronds, grading to a usually small number of short contorted hairs of variable length and narrow hair-like scales; lower surface of costules scaly and hairy as costae. Sori close to costules; indusia light brown, broadly cup-shaped with a ± permanent smooth edge or rather one-sided due to splitting; paraphyses short and slender. Fig. 2: 2, 2A, B (page 10)
Range
DISTR. U 2–4; K 1–7; T 2–8 widespread in tropical Africa from Liberia to Kenya and south to Mozambique and Zimbabwe
Altitude range
850–2700 m
Distribution
KENYA Kiambu District Gatamayu Forest, Mar. 1964, Verdcourt 3992!;KENYA Kiambu District Uplands Forest Station NE of Limuru, 1970, Faden 70/387!;KENYA Teita District Mbololo, Aug. 1938, Joanna in CM 9027!TANZANIA Tanga District Kwamkoro Forest Reserve, Jan. 1961, Semsei 3176!;TANZANIA Mpanda District Musenabantu, Aug. 1959, Harley 9364!;TANZANIA Songea District Liwiri-Kiteza Forest Reserve, Nov. 1951, Eggeling 6376!UGANDA Kigezi District Ishasha Gorge 6 km SW of Kirima, Sep. 1969, Faden et al. 69/1205!;UGANDA Toro District Bwamba Pass, Nov. 1935, A.S.Thomas 1451!;UGANDA Mbale District Butandiga to Bulago, Dec. 1938, A.S.Thomas 2546!
Notes
Uses. In Tanzania used for building poles (fide Greenway, Semsei). Conservation Widespread; least concern (LC). C. deckenii has been separated from C. manniana by many authors. The very reduced pinnae near the stipe base and the obviously one-sided (hemitelioid) indusia, were used to distinguish it from that species. Holttum (1981) recognised 4 groups and made an important distinction between species with hemitelioid sori and sori with a complete cup or disc. The type collection of C. deckenii Kuhn consists of three detached parts: one complete small pinna and two incomplete pinnae, both without sori.Pichi Sermolli (1956) in comparing deckenii with manniana, cited only the type and Alluaud 349 as representing deckenii. Both are from Kilimanjaro. He considered deckenii a distinct and probably highly localized species, and that it “was misunderstood by authors and nearly all the specimens from Tropical East Africa referred to this species are wrongly identified”, and were in fact manniana. The character states he used seem weak to me, as such can be seen to vary within a single frond of the better collections of manniana from E Africa (mostly made since 1956), and indeed the rest of Africa in which it occurs. I consider the poor type material could very well have come from near the apex of a frond, where costule distance and other parameters he uses are smaller.Holttum (1981) also upheld deckenii as a good species, without reference to the Pichi Sermolli paper. He cited five additional collections which he considered deckenii, from three widely separated locations in Tanzania, Congo Republic and Mozambique. I have examined five of these, including Allaud 349, and find that despite Holttum’s emphasis on the presence of a hemitelioid (one-sided) indusium in deckenii (which of course could not be ascertained from the rudimentary and sterile type collection), all of these collections have entire indusial cups, albeit most of them variously split in one or two places and therefore can appear to be one-sided. In addition, the folder at K containing Allaud 349 (2 sheets) has an annotation on it, in Holttum’s hand, as follows “these specimens are not closely distinct from manniana ”. This doubt is not hinted at in his 1981 paper. On checking this material through the Beck microscope and illuminator Holttum was using at Kew to examine African Cyathea in 1980–81, the images possible are indeed conclusive on this point. In addition, in his description of deckenii (enlarged to take in the seven collections he cites) he mentions the presence of reduced basal pinnae, presumably alluding to Faden 70/314, which is the only specimen of the six he saw to have a stipe base. Incidentally what appeared to him to be the base of a reduce pinna on the K set of this number is in fact an aborted pinna. Those two character states were used by Holttum (see p. 464 of his 1981 paper) to position deckenii in his ‘group 2’, along with C. capensis, which demonstrably has a one-sided indusium. Hence the position of these two names together in his key. C. manniana he placed in his ‘group 3’, with dregei and thomsonii, all of which he stated as not having reduced pinnae. My study of African collections in BM, EA, K, WAG, in particular six very good collections from East Africa (some of which were collected after 1981 or were otherwise apparently not seen by Holttum) show clearly that manniana can bear one or more (usually two) very reduced pinnae, or aborted such, near the stipe base. The aborted pinnae may be very small and inconspicuous. Hepper & Field 5186 from the West Usambaras is particularly revealing, with its long stipe and a single reduced pinna 5 cm long by 1.5 cm wide, plus a tiny aborted pinna. It also shows sori with complete indusial cups directly abutting onto sori with cups tilted and/or split in such a way as to appear hemitelioid.Interestingly, Schelpe (1970) placed deckenii in synonymy under manniana, without comment.In Zimbabwe Asplenium hypomelas seems restricted to the stems of C. manniana .