Volume 3 > Part 1 > Year 1979 > Page 102 > Cyatheaceae > Cyathea

1. Cyathea chinensis Copel.wfo-0001125321

Philipp. J. Sci. 3: 355. 1909; Holttum, Kew Bull. 19: 466. 1965; Tagawa & K.Iwats., S.E. Asian Stud. 5: 45. 1967. Fig. 6: 1–3, 6.

Accepted Name : Alsophila costularis Baker
Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1906: 8. 1906.

Synonyms & Citations :

Description : Trunks up to 5 m or more tall. Stipes about 50 cm long, dark purplish near base, brownish upwards, with rather dense short spines throughout, warty; scales linear, to 3.5 cm long, 1.5 mm broad, shining dark brown, stiff, the edges narrow, paler, ferrugineous, soon abraded; main rachis smooth, glabrescent, light brown; largest pinnae about 50 cm long, 13 cm wide, narrowly oblong, basal pinnae a little reduced; pinna-rachis pale beneath, bearing pale crisped hairs; pinnules more than 30 in pairs, sessile, patent, lanceolate, acuminate at apex, broadly cuneate or subtruncate at base, about 8 cm long, 1.3 cm wide, about 1.5 cm apart, lobed almost to costae leaving laminae 1 mm broad, lobes oblique, falcate, round to moderately acute at apex, crenate-serrate at margin, about 7 mm long, 3 mm broad; costae and costules hairy throughout on lower surface, scales few, pale, more or less convex, hardly bullate; texture papyraceous, light green, paler beneath; veins simple or forked. Sori close to costules; receptacles large; indusia in mature sori reflexed as broad pale brown scales, irregular and abraded at margin.

Thailand : NORTHERN: Chiang Rai (Doi Phacho).

Distribution : E Himalayas, Yunnan (type), Indochina.

Ecology : On moist slopes at edge of lower montane forests at about 1,200 m alt.

Uses: Fibrous trunk used for orchid media.

E-version notes : For more details see Ferns of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.