Cyathea gracilis Griseb.

Cyathea gracilis Griseb. Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 704. 1864
Caudex erect or decumbent, occasionally attaining a height of 3 meters, 5-7 cm. in diameter, clothed with the closely placed appressed dark-castaneous persistent stipe-bases of previous seasons; fronds 1.5-2.25 meters long, of lax habit, the leafy parts relatively very broad, spaced, and petiolate; stipe erect, spreading, 60-75 cm. long, Hght-castaneous, darker toward the base, there tuberculate (otherwise unarmed) and clothed with large ovate attenuate dark -centered castaneous scales; lamina slender, 1-2 meters long, 60-90 cm. broad, tripinnate, chartaceo-coriaceous, dark-green, glabrous throughout 'except for the costae and costules, these densely ferruginous-pubescent above with somewhat appressed hairs, the costules also with a few deciduous lustrous brown bullate scales below ; rachises light-brownish or light-castaneous, smoothish ; pinnae lax, long-p etiolate (3.5-5 cm. ), 30-45 cm. long, 15-28 cm. broad, elongate-triangular, the apex serrate-acuminate ; pinnules 10-14 pairs, petiolate, the lowermost the largest (up to 14 cm. long and 5 cm. broad) and longpetiolate (more than 1 cm.), those above narrower, finally deltoid-lanceolate; segments of the larger pinnules about 13 pairs, linear-oblong to lanceolate, nearly straight, the lowermost the largest (3 cm. long, 6 mm. broad), subsessile, distant, and often deeply incisoserrate (the apices subacute), those above gradually smaller, closer, adnate, finally connected by a broad foliar wing below the long serrate-acuminate apex ; veins 10-12 pairs, mostly soriferous, 1 to 3 times forked or (in the largest segments) pinnately forked ; sori numerous, large, single at the lowermost fork of the vein or in clusters of 2 or 3 upon the pinnately forked veins; indusium globose, firm, glaucous, bursting into several persistent saccate lobes ; receptacle large, capitate, setiferous.
Type locality : Fox's Gap, Jamaica.
Distribution : Forested slopes of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, altitude 1500 to 1800 meters ; gregarious in moist sheltered situations.