Woodsia R.Br.

Cliff ferns (en), Woodsie (fr)

Genus

Pteridophytes > Polypodiales > Woodsiaceae

Characteristics

Plants small, usually epilithic. Rhizomes short, erect or ascending, rarely decumbent, scaly; scales lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, membranous. Fronds clustered; stipe shorter than lamina, articulate at various levels, i.e., from top to near base, or continuous in some species; lamina 1-pinnate or 1-pinnate-pinnatifid, lanceolate, herbaceous or subpapery, usually with articulate hairs or scales, rarely glabrous, base gradually tapering. Veins free, pinnate, not reaching laminar margin. Sori small, consisting of 3-18 sporangia, orbicular, on veinlets or at veinlet tips; indusia inferior, various, usually saucer-to cup-shaped, dissected into ciliate platelike segments or reduced into curly, multicellular hairs, sometimes exindusiate. Spores ellipsoid, monolete, perispore folded with granular, echinate or tuberculate ornamentations on surface. x = 39, 41.
More
Petiole slender and wiry, shorter than the blade, scaly at least at the base, with 2 bundles, these uniting distally; blade pinnate to subtripinnate, scaly or scaleless, often hairy or glandular, the veins forking and free, not reaching the margin; sori borne on the veins, often confluent in age, rotund but with an elongate receptacle; indusium inferior, borne below and ± surrounding the sporangia, consisting variously of septate hairs around a minute basal disk, or of a small sac that soon ruptures irregularly to form a small basal disk with spreading, unequal segments; small to medium-sized ferns of rocky places, with tufted lvs and persistent, elongate petiole-bases on a short rhizome that is covered with yellowish to dark brown scales. 20–25, cosmop.
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Foliage retention evergreen
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Hardiness (USDA) 4-9

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