Blotiella - Dennstaedtiaceae

Blotiella currorii (Hook.) R.M. Tryon

 

 

 

 

Synonyms

Pteris currorii Hook.
Pteris mannii Baker
Lonchitis currorii (Hook.) Kuhn
Lonchitis mannii (Baker) Alston
Litobrochia mannii (Baker) J.Sm.
Blotiella mannii (Baker) Pic.Serm.

Common name

Description

Rhizome massive, erect or short-creeping, thick and woody, bearing dense ferruginous or golden hairs. Fronds tufted, firmly herbaceous. Stipe straw-coloured or brownish, up to 1 m with a dense felt of brown hairs up to 1 cm long at base, sparsely set with short hairs pubescent or hairless above. lamina broadly ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, up to 90 x 60 cm, deeply 2-pinnatifid to 2-pinnate. Pinnae broadly ovate-lanceolate in outline, up to 35 x 6 cm long, apex pointed, increesingly deeply incised from the apex to the base. Segments subopposite, lanceolate in outline, apex coming to a point, margins wavy, up to 5 x 2 cm; with rounded sinuses between the lobes; segments hairless except for scattered minute white hairs along the costae and costules. Rhachis straw-coloured, with short hairs especially around the bases of the pinnae. Sori narrow, linear, continuous or interrupted, about 0.6 mm wide; indusia very narrow, membranous.

Notes

B. mannii is also treated as an accepted species. In FTEA B. mannii is placed in synonym with B. currorii, they being inseparable and there being intermediates (Verdcourt, 1999).

Derivation

currorii: named after A.B. Curror (1811-1845?) of HMS Water-Witch, Scottish surgeon and plant collector in Angola in the 1840's.

Habitat

Moist evergreen forest, deep shade.

Distribution worldwide

Tropical Africa.

Distribution in Africa

Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Dem. Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea (incl. Bioko), Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Zambia.

Growth form

Terrestrial.

Literature

  • Kornas, J. (1979) Distribution and ecology of the Pteridophytes in Zambia. Polska Akademia Nauk Wydzial II Nauk Biologicznych. Page 86.
  • Roux, J.P. (2001) Conspectus of Southern African Pteridophyta.Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report, 13 Pages 91 - 92.
  • Roux, J.P. (2009) Synopsis of the Lycopodiophyta and Pteridophyta of Africa, Madagascar and neighbouring islands. Strelitzia 23, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. Page 108.
  • Schelpe, E.A.C.L.E. (1970) Pteridophyta.Flora Zambesiaca, 0 Page 84.
  • Tardieu-Blot, M.-L. (1964) Ptéridophytes vol.3.Flore du Cameroun, Pages 100 - 101. As Lonchitis currori (Hooker) Mett. ex Kuhn (Includes a picture).
  • Tardieu-Blot, M.-L. (1964) Ptéridophytes vol.3.Flore du Cameroun, Page 101. As Lonchitis mannii (Baker) Alston
  • Thardieu-Blot, M.L. (1964) Ptéridophytes vol.8.Flore du Gabon, Pages 74 - 75. As Lonchitis currori (Includes a picture).
  • Verdcourt, B. (1999) Dennstaedtiaceae.Flora of Tropical East Africa, Pages 16 - 17.
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