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Image of Climbing fern
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Climbing Ferns

Lygodiaceae

Description

provided by Flora of Zimbabwe
Plants terrestrial, climber. Rhizome horizontal creeping, slender, dichotomously branched. Fronds climbing, numerous, dimorphic, specialised fertile pinnae with strongly reduced lamina parts bearing aggregated sporangia in marginal spike-like masses; with a slender twisting indeterminate rhachis, stipe cylindric, rhachis cylindrical to slightly flattened adaxially. Indumentum composed of single uniseriate hairs confined to the frond axes and veins, veins free.
The climbing stem is in fact the stipe and the rhachis of an elongated frond. Secondary rhachis branches absent or present, alternate, dichotomously branched, with an arrested apical bud in each bifurcation. Pinnae borne in pairs along the secondary rhachis. Pinnae pinnate to 3-pinnatifid. Sporangia borne along the margins of pinnule lobes, borne seperately in 2 rows at the veins endings, each sporangium subtended by an indusia-like flange covering it abaxially, homosporous.
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copyright
Mark Hyde, Bart Wursten and Petra Ballings
bibliographic citation
Hyde, M.A., Wursten, B.T. and Ballings, P. (2002-2014). Lygodiaceae Flora of Zimbabwe website. Accessed 28 August 2014 at http://www.zimbabweflora.co.zw/speciesdata/family.php?family_id=127
author
Mark Hyde
author
Bart Wursten
author
Petra Ballings
original
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Flora of Zimbabwe