Malagasy Plants?

[Frogtofall]

Mine is from Selby and looks the same as the BJ link...



Link to a pic of an herbarium specimen...

http://tropicos.org/Image/6397
http://tropicos.org/Image/100130982

Here's the page...
http://tropicos.org/Name/26602318

The image of the living plant looks different than this one I pictured here.

[harrywitmore]

It's probably because it has many variations due to local. The book say brown scales. Are yours brown? Yours looks just like what I have as aff lycopodioides.

[skylsdale]

I've been doing a bit more research, and I'm wondering if perhaps what I found was Microgramma owariensis (I can't find an image of thise species to confirm, however). This info from ZipcodeZoo.com:

"Stems long-creeping...0.5-1.5" diam., not whitish pruinose; leaves monomorphic or dimorphic, well seperated, not narrowed toward tip; fertile leaves often narrower and longer than sterile leaves. Blade simple, linear-elliptic to linear oblanceolate..."

Zach, I apologize if this has hijacked your thread!

***EDIT***

On the Kew website, it seems owariensis is a synonym of lycopodioides, which has a similar description:

"...widely creeping, with fronds spaces 1 cm or more apart and with subulate entire pale-brown rhizome scales...turning grey with age. Frond simple, stipitate, sometimes somewhat dimorphous, with the fertile fronds longer and narrower than the sterile fronds. Lamina...narrowly oblong to elliptic, entire, acute, obtuse or caudate, decurrent at the base..."

[skylsdale]

Heard back from a professor at UC Berkeley today regarding the fern I posted above and figured I would share:

Looking at the images again, and comparing them with specimens in UC (we have several from Liberia), and literature, I am convinced that the West African plants sometimes known as Microgramma lycopodioides are distinct from Neotropical specimens of the same name. I would call the plants from Liberia, Cameroon, Sao Tome, etc., Microgramma owariensis (Desv.) Alston, the type is from West Africa. This species is more dimorphic and thicker-textured than is M. lycopodioides. In fact, M. owariensis, in these respects, is more like the Mexican and Central American species known as M. nitida (syn. M. palmeri) than it is M. lycopodioides. I prefer to keep M. owariensis as a separate species, for the time being.

[Frogtofall]

So this person hasn't looked at preserved or living specimens? Just images?

[botanyboy03]

WE had something similar to this growing on the bench at the nursery I was working at in Harlingen, TX( Lower Rio Grande Valley, zone 10) last year, but I didn't bring any of it with me, I should contact the manager and get him to send me some of it. It looked just like the ones pictured on the palm, which was first linked. The fertile fronds looked almost identical.

Zac

[skylsdale]

Originally Posted by Frogtofall

So this person hasn't looked at preserved or living specimens? Just images?

He looked at my images from Liberia and compared them with specimens he has at UC Berkely, as well as the associated literature on the species.