Leather Leaf Gold Back Fern

Varieties 3 (1 in the flora): primarily Neotropics, Africa.

Acrostichum calomelanos Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 1072. 1753

calomelanos: beautifully black, referring to the colour of stipe and rhachis; aureoflava: golden yellow, the undersides of the lamina are covered with yellow powder.

Rhizome erect to shortly creeping, up to 10 mm in diameter; scales light brown, linear, up to 4 mm long, margins entire. Fronds tufted, arching, firmly herbaceous. Stipe 6-36 cm long, black to chestnut brown, shiny smooth with few scales at the base. Lamina 14-37 × 7-14 cm, ovate to lanceolate in outline, 2- to 3-pinnatifid, long tapering to the apex. Pinnae oblong-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, pinnatifid to varying degree, apices acute, margins shallowly toothed and inrolled in dried material, dark green above and covered with a yellow powder below, glabrous on both surfaces. Rhachis black to chestnut brown, shiny, glabrous. Sori about 3 mm long, situated along the veins in the outer half of the lamina between the costule and margin, often difficult to see because of the yellow powder; exindusiate.

Rare

Native of South and Central America but naturalised in DRC, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Comoro Islands, Mauritius, Australia. Now also found in Zimbabwe.

Pityrogramma calomelanos là một loài thực vật có mạch trong họ Adiantaceae. Loài này được (L.) Link miêu tả khoa học đầu tiên năm 1833.

粉叶蕨（学名：Pityrogramma calomelanos）为裸子蕨科粉叶蕨属下的一个种。