Volume 3 > Part 2 > Year 1989 > Page 263–264 > Aspleniaceae > Asplenium

1. Asplenium delavayi (Franch.) Copel.wfo-0001125539

Gen Fil.: 165. 1947; Tagawa & K.Iwats., S.E. Asian Stud. 5: 83. 1967.— Scolopendrium delavayi Franch., Bull. Soc. Bot. France 32: 29 1885; Bedd., Handb. Suppl. Ferns Brit. India: 41. 1892. Fig. 21.1.

Accepted Name : This is currently accepted.

Description : Rhizome short, erect, densely scaly; scales narrow, up to 2.5 by 0.5 mm, gradually narrowing from base towards long-acuminate apex, nealy black with brown margin, clathrate. Stipe 5–10 cm long in fertile frond, up to 3.5 cm in sterile one, dark purplish, distinctly polished, grooved on upper surface, softly pubescent or glabrescent. Frond simple, nearly circular, rounded or rarely very moderately acute at apex, deeply cordate but seldom imbricate at base, up to 5 cm long and broad, sterile ones smaller, margin subentire to moderately crisped, chartaceous, grass-green on upper surface, paler below, glabrous; costa brown and polished like stipe only in lower ⅓, the base of veins like stipe and then all the veins hardly visible on both surfaces, once or twice furcate, all free and nearly reaching the margin. Sori elongate along veins, usually from base to near apex; a pair of sori facing each other having their indusia attached laterally by their outer edges.

Thailand : NORTH-EASTERN: Loei (Phu Luang).

Distribution : SW China (type), Assam (Clarke 41927E), Upper Burma, Tonkin.

Ecology : Only once collected in Thailand (Tagawa et al. T-1084) on muddy crevices of calcareous rocks in dense forests at about 900 m alt.

Notes: The specimens collected in Yunnan are variable in size; the description given above is based on Thai materials.

Asplenium delavayi is often compares with Phyllitis, which is defined by the strange construction of sori. As correctly pointed out by Copeland (1947), however, this soral condition may have been derived along several parallel courses. Asplenium delavayi is a distinct species without any close allies, although the sorus of this species is apparently similar to that of the species referred ot Phyllitis.

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