Australian Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes - Online edition

Hypolepis elegans


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Herbarium specimen. © Queensland Herbarium
Herbarium specimen. © Queensland Herbarium
Herbarium specimen. © Queensland Herbarium
Family

Dennstaedtiaceae

Botanical name

Hypolepis elegans Carruth.

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/67252

Description

Rhizome long creeping, hairy. Stipe and rachis dark chestnut-brown at base, yellow-brown or green at apex, bearing abundant non-glandular hairs; stipe 30–95 cm long, 4–8 mm diam. Lamina broadly ovate or broader than long, 40–100 cm long, 45–80 cm wide, 4–5-pinnate at base, with abundant colourless and brownish stiff curved sharply pointed non-glandular hairs on underside of veins and midribs, to 1 mm long. Primary pinnae in 20–25 pairs; longest 28–70 cm long, 20–50 cm wide. Longest secondary pinnae 13–35 cm long, 4–18 cm wide. Longest tertiary pinnae 2.5–11 cm long, 8–50 mm wide. Quaternary pinnae 4–30 mm long, 2–12 mm wide, often divided to midribs; ultimate pinnules falcate. Veins ending in apices of ultimate segments. Sori lacking paraphyses, protected by sharply reflexed membranous flaps. Spores pale, echinate, 26–28 × 17–19 µm. 

Distribution

Occurs in NE QLD, NE NSW and S Vic. Also in the Pacific Islands.

Habit and habitat

Terrestrial, mostly in well-lit disturbed situations adjacent rainforest or wet-sclerophyll forest.

Citation of Australian Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes

Field AR, Quinn CJ, Zich FA (2022) Australian Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes. apps.lucidcentral.org/fern/text/intro/index.htm (accessed online INSERT DATE).

Field AR, Quinn CJ, Zich FA (2022) ‘Platycerium superbum’, in Australian Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes. apps.lucidcentral.org/fern/text/entities/platycerium_superbum.htm (accessed online INSERT DATE).

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