Pyrrosia rupestris

Polypodiaceae

Pyrrosia rupestris (R.Br.) Ching

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/75424

Rock Felt Fern

Rhizome long-creeping, branched, 1–2 mm diam. Scales very narrowly ovate, to 2.5–7 mm long, 0.9–1.5 mm wide, spreading, thin, chartaceous, pale rust-coloured, tapering to a long narrow hair-like apex; margins entire or undulating. Fronds dimorphic: sterile fronds 0.4–4 cm long; fertile fronds c. 1–11 (–20) cm long. Stipes scattered at short intervals, 0.1–1 cm long in sterile fronds, 0.3–4.5 cm long in fertile fronds. Lamina dark green above, paler beneath, covered on both sides with white to reddish hairs, sparser above; sterile lamina obovate, spathulate to roundish, 3–10 (–15) mm wide; fertile lamina narrowly elliptic, narrowly ovate, narrowly obovate to linear, 1.5–9 mm wide; lower part tapering gradually into stipe; apex obtuse; midrib raised beneath. Sori mostly c. 1–2.5 mm diam., round to elliptic, slightly immersed in lamina, crowded in 1–4 rows on each side of midrib for up to three-quarters of the way down frond, distinct when young, often confluent with age, especially near apex. Spores 57.5–77.5 µm long, 27.5–45 µm wide, bisculptate. 

Eastern Australia from Mt Finnegan in NE QLD to Mt Drummer in Vic. Also Papua New Guinea.

Epiphytic or lithophytic in a wide variety of vine forest and wet-sclerophyll forest communities.

Easily cultivated in a pot, slab or on a tree in a moist tropical or subtropical garden.