Cyathea divergens Kunze

Cyathea divergens Kunze, I^innaea 9 : 100. 1834
? Cyathea equ^stris Kunze, lyinnaea 9 : 100. 1834.
Alosphila subaspera Christ, in Pittier, Prim. Fl. Costar. 3: 43. 1901.
Cyathea pelliculosa Christ, Bull. Herb. Boiss. II. 4: 946. 1904.
Caudex erect, 2.5-6 meters or more high, relatively slender, brown, not armed, the fronds divergent and somewhat drooping, articulate, leaving smoothish elliptic or narrowly oval scars 6-7 cm. long and 2.5-3 cm. broad, the spaces among these near the summit closely clothed with rigid subulate dark-brown scales (1-2 cm. long) with narrow whitish margins ; stipe 60 cm. or more long, 2-3 cm. in diameter, paleaceous upon the upper side like the caudex, below densely armed with short sharp conical spines 2-3 mm. long, lightbrown, closely and deciduously light brownish-furfuraceous, eventually more or less lustrous, the primary rachis yellowish-brown, similarly aculeate at least below, usually muricate above ; lamina very ample, deeply tripinnatifid, the leaf-tissue rigidly coriaceous ; pinnae petiolate (the lower ones up to 4.5 cm. ), deltoid-lanceolate, the larger ones 60-75 cm. long, 20-28 cm. broad, acuminate, the secondary rachis dullor brownish-stramineous, aculeate, sharply muricate, or smoothish below, above strigose ; pinnules 16-21 pairs, distant, spreading, the lower and middle ones of the larger pinnae long-petiolate (3-9 mm.), 10-15 cm. long, 2.5-4 cm. broad at or near the base, deltoid-lanceolate, at least deeply tripinnatifid, the apex attenuate-acuminate, the costae densely strigose above, glabrous below; segments 16-20 pairs, subfalcate, oblong to linearoblong, the lower pair or two the largest, semiadnate to sessile, apart, 4-5 mm. broad, those above fully adnate, closer and connected by a gradually widening wing 1.5-2.5 mm. broad upon either side of the costa, or all the segments adnate and connected, separated by narrow acute sinuses, these appearing wider from the revolute subentire to crenulate-serrate margins, the apices obliquely subtruncate, usually subacute in drying ; costules yellowish and glabrous above, below dark, glabrous, or with an occasional reduced slender brownish deciduous scale ; veins about 1013 pairs, mostly setiferous, dark, close, oblique, mostly 1or 2-forked, glabrous ; sori large, seated at the forking of the veins, inframedial (or the lower pair or two distant from the costule), strongly confluent at maturity ; indusia globose, yellowish-brown, lustrous, membranous, bursting irregularly, the divisions delicate but mostly persistent; receptacles large, capitate, conspicuously long-hirsute with beaded hairs.
Type locality : Pampayaco, Peru.
Distribution : Costa Rica, up to 2700 meters altitude ; Peru reported also from Bcuador and