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Hardy Fern Home Thelypteris resources
All Ferns Thelypteridaceae Thelypteris
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Wikipedia| Thelypteris Earlier placement: | |
Female fern | |
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Etymology
From the Greek. Thelys means female, + pteris, the word for ferns in general.
Description
Rhizome: long-creeping, triangular scales.
Frond: deciduous, monomorphic or somewhat dimorphic. Stipe: scaly, vascular bundles: 2, crescent-shaped. Blade: 1-pinnate to pinnate-pinnatifid, lanceolate to ovate, transparent needlelike hairs, sometimes glandular. costae grooved above, discontinuous with the rachis, veins free. Sori: round or oblong, medial to supramedial or elongate along veins, indusium: reniform, occasionally ephemeral, at a sinus.
Distinctive Characteristics
Members of the genus are pinnate with deeply lobed pinnae, have two vascular bundles, sori with a kidney-shaped, short-lived indusium, and needle-like, translucent or white hairs on the lamina, rachis, stipe.
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Notes
Reputation The genus is the disgraceful daughter, the black sheep, of pteridophytes, forever subject to abuse when fern aficionados gather. It has to be daughter because Thelypteris is from the Greek thelys, female.
Reputation The genus is the disgraceful daughter, the black sheep, of pteridophytes, forever subject to abuse when fern aficionados gather. It has to be daughter because Thelypteris is from the Greek thelys, female.
Thelypteris. Cross-section of stipe base, below, and at top, above. The pair of strap-like vascular bundles throughout are characteristic of not just the genus, but the family, i.e., Phegopteris and Oreopteris. Illustration from Scandinavian Ferns by Benjamin Ĝllgaard and Kirsten Tind, Rhodos, 1993. |
