Australian Tropical Ferns and Lycophytes - Online edition

Pseudolycopodium densum


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Close up of frond showing strobili. © APII
Close up of frond showing strobili. © M. Fagg, APII
Habit. © M. Fagg, APII
Family

Lycopodiaceae

Botanical name

Pseudolycopodium densum (Rothm.) Holub

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/51347347

Description

Rhizome creeping, to 3 m long, clothed in slightly spreading scale leaves. Branchlet systems erect, 10–100 cm tall. Leaves spiral to subwhorled, imbricate, appressed or spreading, adnate, dimorphic, green to yellowish green. Leaves of sterile branchlets linear-lanceolate, attenuate, 2–4.5 mm long, spreading. Leaves of sporogenous branchlets ovate-lanceolate, attenuate, 1–2.5 mm long; margins membranous, translucent, ciliate around the base. Leaves of central axis (sporogenous and sterile) similar to those on sterile branchlets, but appressed, 4.5–6 mm long. Strobili terminal on ultimate branchlets, 1–3.5 cm long, solitary. Sporophylls imbricate, acute; margins membranous, fimbriate

Distribution

Eastern Australia from Thornton Peak to Tasmania. Also in New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Habit and habitat

Terrestrial, usually in oligotrophic wetlands on the margins of rainforest or in sclerophyll forest, heath or open lake and tarn situations. In NE QLD it is restricted to the peaks of high mountains.

Cultivation

Very difficult to propagate and establish.

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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