Goniophlebium percussum

Polypodiaceae

Goniophlebium percussum (Cav.) W.H.Wagner & Grether

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/85257

Rhizome long-creeping, not chalky white; scales attenuate, clathrate, caducous, dark brown, 1.2–4 mm long, 0.7–1.5 mm wide; base broad and rounded; margins with fine rigid teeth; apex narrow, hair-like. Fronds monomorphic. Stipes 8–34 cm long, distantly space, articulated to short phyllopodia. Lamina pinnate. Pinnae articulated to rachis, narrowly ovate to oblong, commonly 3–5 cm apart, 3–22.5 cm long, 0.7–3 cm wide, thin, firm, clothed when young with soft pale hairs, glabrescent apart from some small scattered scales on rachis and lower surface of costae; base equally or unequally cuneate; margins ±entire to shallowly dentate; apex acuminate, acute. Veins forked, forming a series of 3-4 areoles on each side of costa; areoles mostly with a free included veinlet branching from near the base of a main lateral vein on apical side and directed towards margin; outer veins often free or sometimes forming 1 or more similar or smaller series of areoles, with or without free included veinlets. Sori solitary in each of the innermost areoles, surrounded by a ring of dark brown dentate scale-like paraphyses; sporangia immersed in distinct depressions. Spores bilateral, hyaline, yellow or brownish, smooth; perispore inconspicuous or cristately folded. 

Cooktown to Whitsundays in NE QLD. Also in Malesia.

A canopy epiphyte, usually from other epiphytes, in mesic lowland and lower montane vine forest.

Best cultivated in a hanging basket of coarse material or in a nest-fern in a tropical garden or fernery.

Similar to Goniophlebium subauriculatum.

1a. Pinna margins entire, pinna bases cunneate and not auriculate, rhizomes green = Goniophlebium percussum

1b. Pinna margins toothed-crenate, pinna bases truncate with an auricle, rhizomes chalky white = Goniophlebium subauriculatum