Compilation
Aspidium exaltatum

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Name

Identification
Acrostichum indet. Not on sheet [family PTERIDACEAE ] (stored under name); Verified by Not on sheet, Aspidium exaltatum (L.) Sw. [family DRYOPTERIDACEAE ] Verified by scr. ignot.,
Related name
  • Aspidium exaltatum
  • Nephrolepis rivularis
  • Acrostichum indet.

Flora

Entry for NEPHROLEPIS exaltata (L.) Schott [family OLEANDRACEAE]
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, (2001) Author: B Verdcourt, B.Sc., Ph.D.
Names
NEPHROLEPIS exaltata (L.) Schott [family OLEANDRACEAE], Gen. Fil.: t. 3 (1834); Hook. & Baker, Syn. Fil.: 301 (1867); Sim, Ferns S. Afr., ed. 2: 125, t. 61/1 (1915); F.D.-O.A.: 64 (1929); Proctor, Ferns Jamaica: 440 (1985); Schelpe & N.C. Anthony, F.S.A., Pterid.: 169, fig. 53/1, map 145 (1986); J.E. Burrows, S. Afr. Ferns: 206, t. 34/1, fig. 47/209, map (1990). Type: Sloane, Nat. Hist. Jamaica 1: t. 31, a figure of a plant collected in an unknown locality in Jamaica by Sir Arthur Rawdon’s gardener (holo.)
Polypodium exaltatum L. [family POLYPODIACEAE], Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 2: 1326 (1759)
Aspidium exaltatum (L.) Sw. [family DRYOPTERIDACEAE], in Schrad., J. Bot. 1800 (2): 32 (1801)
Information
Plant terrestrial or occasionally epiphytic. Rhizome short, ± erect, stoloniferous and tuber-forming with dense apical tuft of light orange-brown narrowly lanceolate-attenuate glabrous scales up to 8 mm long, 0.8 mm broad, terminating in a long hair-like apex. Fronds tufted, suberect or spreading, up to 2.5 m long; stipes mostly 6–20 cm long, fibrillose-scaly with linear pale orange-brown scales; lamina linear to narrowly ovate-lanceolate, 5–42 cm long, 6–14.5 cm wide; pinnae narrowly elongate-triangular, 3–7 cm long, 0.8–1.3 cm wide, acute at the apex, subcordate and obtusely auriculate at base, the auricle on the acroscopic side often overlapping the rhachis, the margins bluntly serrulate to slightly crenate. Sori round to semi-lunate, opening towards margin or the upper ones towards the apex; indusium orbicular-cordate to subreniform, the sinus ± open and U-shaped.
Range
DISTR. T 3 cultivated and naturalised in South Africa. Proctor states ‘in the New World it is known as a wild plant only from Florida, the Bahamas, Greater Antilles and Mexico…usually considered to be pantropical but many specimens have been misidentified’ also it has escaped extensively from cultivation.
Altitude range
900 m
Distribution
TANZANIA Lushoto District E Usambaras, Amani, 12 Feb. 1907, Braun in A.H. 2096! & Amani, July 1914, Grote in A.H. 7654! & 17 Sept. 1929, Glynne 233! & Amani, Boma Garden, 26 Aug. 1929, Greenway 1700!
Notes
The Greenway specimen was clearly cultivated, but the other three collections cited appear to have been made from naturalised plants. There are many cultivars with much-divided pinnae, often known as Boston Ferns, although true var. bostoniense is much like the typical plant. Doubtless some of these have been grown in East Africa.

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