Diplazium pycnocarpon - (image 1 of 5)
Taxonomy
Family: Dryopteridaceae
Habitat
Terrestrial in swampy thickets and glades in moist, neutral soil. Also on moist shaded slopes.
Associates
I found this specimen growing with Adiantum pedatum, Dryopteris goldiana, and Stylophorum diphyllum.
Distribution
NH south to GA, west MN to LA.
Morphology
Medium to large fern growing from creeping rhizome. Leaves once divided, pinnae simple, shallowly crenate to entire, the veins 1-forked just above the base and the branches themselves forked above their base. Stipes glabrous to sparsely hairy. Sori elongate, several times longer than wide, nearly straight. Indusia translucent, brownish, entire.
Notes
Flowers NA
Wetland indicator: Facultative -
Swink & Wilhelm (1994) call this plant Athyrium pycnocarpon (Narrow-leaved Spleenwort). I chose to use the PLANTS nomenclature (USDA 2002) for no other reason than to reduce the number of plants on the "a" page. Lellinger (1985) uses the same name as Swink & Wilhelm, and restricts the genus Diplazium to the tropics and notes that the Glade Ferns are sometimes placed in the segregate genus Allantodia. I didn't take a sample to check but this species should probably have doubled sori to justify placement in Diplazium. The name "Glade Fern" is due to the fact that this plant is frequently found in moist depressions are somewhat open to sunlight. Apparently this fern is quite rare in many states, so look but don't touch.
References
Gleason, Henry A. and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY
Lellinger, D. B. and M. Evans. 1985. A Field Manual of the Ferns & Fern Allies of the United States and Canada.
Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, D.C.
Swink, F. and G.
Wilhelm. 1994. Plants of the Chicago Region.
Indiana Academy of Science. The Morton Arboretum. Lisle, Illinois.
USDA, NRCS. 2002.
The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5 (http://plants.usda.gov).
National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.
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Michael Hough © 2004 |