Ophioglossum pendulum L.

Plants epiphytic. Rhizome shortly creeping, often knotting, fleshy. Fronds 1–6-clustered, pendulous, flaccid, fleshy. Common stipe and sterile lamina forming a continuous linear flattened simple blade or occasionally forked once to several times distally, 25–200 cm long, 1–3 cm wide; venation of long narrow areoles, without included veinlets. Sporophore 1–31 cm long, 8–16 mm wide, on a terete 2.5–5 cm long stipe, fused to 1 face of the sterile lamina and extending down for some distance; sporangia reaching to the apex. See also Du Puy (1993), Green (1994: 553).

Grows as an epiphyte usually in the humus accumulations of Platycerium spp., Drynaria spp. and Asplenium australasicum. On Lord Howe Island rare, growing in pockets of humus, for example, in and above plants of Platycerium, and probably overlooked there (Green 1994: 553). On Christmas Island uncommon in tall primary rainforest on the plateau, and in more open forest on the upper terraces around Aldrich Hill; also reported from the lower terraces near Sydneys Dale, where surface water maintains a high humidity (Du Puy 1993: 536).