Puerto Rico Flowering Fern

Anemia portoricensis Maxon, sp. nov
Rhizome creeping, densely covered with dark-brown or blackish turgid acicular hairs ; fronds dimorphous, dorsal, distichous, clustered, the fertile ones equaling or surpassing the sterile. Sterile fronds recurved or ascending, 8-21 cm. long; stipes flexuous, 6-12 cm. long, slender or stoutish, clothed with stifl ascending or appressed brownish acicular hairs ; lamina oblong-deltoid, oblong or deltoid-oblong, obtuse, 7-12 cm. long, 3-6 cm. broad in the lower part, bipinnate at the base, bipinnatifid above ; pinnae spreading, approximate to imbricate, mostly shortstalked, only the upper ones subsessile, the lowermost unequally roundeddeltoid to deltoid-oblong, with 1 or rarely 2 pairs of mainly suborbicular shortstalked or sessile segments below the obtuse cuneate-lobate terminal segment ; middle pinnae similar, often only deeply lobed, or with a free basal segment at the upper side, rounded exciso-cuneate at the lower ; upper pinnae rhombic-ovate, cuneate at the base below, the uppermost suborbicular to obovate, finally subconfluent and commonly forming an unequal cuneate lightly lobate terminal segment ; veins elevated below, immersed but apparent above ; margins greatly thickened, cartilaginous, subentire or lightly sinuatedentate, slightly revolute, the pinnules by contraction often strongly concave ; leaf-tissue rigidly coriaceous, lustrous and minutely glandular upon both surfaces, sparsely long-pilose below with curved antrorse yellowish-white subpersistent hairs. Fertile fronds slender but erect, subflexuous, 10-22 cm. long; stipe slender, light-brown; lamina linear-oblong, usually about one-third or one-half as long as the stipe ; pinnae subopposite or alternate, all but the uppermost distant, short-stalked, the lowermost up to 1.5 cm. long; pinnules conspicuously glandular-pilose, subflabellate ; spores broadly striate, the ridges subflexuous and uneven. Type collected on limestone cliffs, on the road from Utuado to Arecibo, Porto Rico, Tulv 13. 1901 Underwood (Sf Griggs 802 (U. S. Nat. Herb. no. 405735). J ^
Distribution : Confined to Porto Rico ; upon limestone cliffs and partially shaded or open rocky slopes.