Lygodium cubense Kunth

Lygodium cubense H.B.K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 1 : 31. 1815
Lygodiuni Poeppigianum Presl, Abh. Bohm. Ges. Wiss. V. 4 : 363. 1845.
Rhizome creeping, slender, blackish, clothed with short dark-brown hairs; stipe 2 mm. in diameter, subterete, narrowly marginate, light-brownish or dull-stramineous from a darker hispid base ; primary branches evident only as short protuberances upon the primary rachis, the terminal bud low-rotund, clothed with cinnamomeous hairs, usually dormant ; sterile secondary (geminate) pinnae petiolate, in small forms linear with a single segment orbinate, but usually rhombic-ovate and pinnate or subbipinnate, 10-20 cm. long and broad, the rachis strongly divaricate-flexuous, marginate, coarsely pubescent ; tertiary segments 1 or 2 pairs, the upper ones linear to linear-lanceolate, petiolate or subsessile from a strongly inequilateral base, the lower side cordate, the upper cuneate, the terminal segment similar or joined to the next below, all acute or acutish, 3-13 cm. long, 3-13 mm. broad, the basal segments binate or pinnate with a single pair of quaternary segments, all similar to the upper tertiary segments ; costae nodose-articulate, pubescent above, sparingly pilose below, strongly elevated, stout, extending to the apex; veins very oblique, curved, 1-4 times dichotomous, elevated, bearing a few scattering hairs above ; leaf-tissue rigidly coriaceous, striate, above lightor yellowish-green, lustrous, below paler and less lustrous, whitishglandular below (often conspicuously so), the margins a little thickened, obscurely crenateserrulate. Fertile secondary (geminate) pinnae bipinnate or at the base subtripinnate ; tertiary segments 3-4 pairs, mostly shorter than the sterile, the upper ones cuneate, deltoid-lanceolate, the middle pinnate at the base with small obdeltoid or subrhombic quarternary segments, the lowermost bipinnate at the base, the quarternary segments similar to the anterior tertiary segments ; sporangiophores distant, single upon the oblique crenations, serrate, mostly 3-8 mm. long, pilose on the midvein above and at the base below, also upon the indusia ; spores coarsely low verrucose-tuberculate.
Type locality : Near Havana, Cuba.
Distribution : Known only from Cuba, apparently common.