Fern id please

[Bharathi raja]

All,

Taken in the month of Feb in Talakona forests,AP on the way to the waterfalls.

[Nancy Seby]

Christella normalis?

Thank you and warm regards

Nancy Seby

www.greencoverinitiative.com

[J.M. Garg]

Forwarding again for Id assistance please.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "efloraofindia" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to indiantreepi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/indiantreepix/0eb58342-dcff-4de0-b3d7-fb94ec6b9523n%40googlegroups.com.

--

With regards,
J.M.Garg

[J.M. Garg]

Dear Dr. Raja,

For nearly all ferns one must see the frond-base, not just upper halves as in so many field photos.  It is one of the reasons why a herbarium-specimen photo is often better.  For Thelypteris species, one also needs to know how the rhizome was, thick-erect with fronds together; thick horizontal, fronds together at apex; or thin long-creeping with fronds separate.  This I can't see in the photo.

However, I can just see the decreasing basal pinnae in one of the central fronds.  Enough to confirm the general impression that it is Thelypteris (Christella) dentata.

If so, it should have a horizontal, thickish rhizome, with fronds together at one end; the basal pair or two pairs of veinlets between each pinna-lobe should anastomose beneath the sinus between lobes and the lower-surface of the costa should have rather obvious scattered stiff hairs, not very long.

But in south India T. dentata is obviously a complex and there seems to be another taxon, close to T. dentata, but with a thin, long-creeping rhizome with more separate fronds arising along it, and the costal hairs are shorter - and more usually two or two-and-a-half pairs of veinlets anastomosing.  I thnk this is T. (Christella) meeboldii - and I collected it in the Shevaroys, Palnis and Kerala, and have seen it from Andhra.  Dr. Sledge found thta his Sri Lankan T. meeboldi had spinulose-ridged spores, unlike T. dentata, but if I understood the type correctly (no rhizome - of course!!) it seems to be the long, thin rhizome species.  And some seem to have spinulose spores some not.  See page 453 of my Annotated Checklist of Indian Pteridophytes vol. 1 (2016).  That long-rhizomed thing is only in South India, not the north.  But I just can't be sure yet if it is meeboldii or not!  My living plant from Kerala soon died unfortunately, so I only grew it for about  a year.   It is a different species from T. dentata anyway. 

Perhaps you could tell me what the rhizome was like and we could make a more informed judgement?  In general I think your plant looks to be normal T. dentata.

Best wishes,

     Chris Fraser-Jenkins

On Thu, 4 Mar, 2021, 2:51 pm Bharathi raja, <vm.bhar...@gmail.com> wrote:

All,

Taken in the month of Feb in Talakona forests,AP on the way to the waterfalls.

--