Asplenium auritum Sw.

Rounded Global Status Rank: G5 - Secure

Reasons: Common. Greater Antilles, continental tropical America from southern Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia. Also occurs in central and southern Florida.

Rhizome erect to sub-erect, up to 10 mm; scales dark brown, entire, attenuate, up to 6 mm. Fronds tufted, not proliferous, dimorphe. Sterile fronds half the size of the fertile fronds. Stipe 8-22 cm, glabrous. Lamina 8-26 cm × 3.2-8.5 cm, pinnate to 2-pinnate, triangular-lanceolate in outline. Pinnae lanceolate, apex obtuse to acute, base asymmetrical cuneate, margins incised more than 1/2 way to the costa becoming pinnatifid towards the pinnae base with a free basal acroscopic lobe; venation pinnate. Rhachis subglabrous. Sori oval, set along the costa, indusium entire. 

United States

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Roots proliferous. Stems erect, unbranched; scales brown throughout, broadly linear, 1--2 × 0.7--1.1 mm, margins shallowly and widely dentate. Leaves monomorphic. Petiole green to black, dull, 2--10(--12) cm, 1/3--1/2 length of blade; indument absent. Blade narrowly deltate, 1--2-pinnate, 4--20(--30) × 1.8--12(--18) cm, thick, nearly glabrous; base not tapered; apex gradually tapered, not rooting. Rachis green to black, dull, abaxially glabrous. Pinnae in 10--22 pairs, linear-deltate, medial pinnae 1--4(--9) × 0.3--1(--2.5) cm; base with acroscopic auricle or pinnule enlarged, excavated in proximal 1/5--1/4; margins mostly 1--2-dentate-serrate, or lobed or pinnate proximally or in proximal 2/3; apex blunt in some 1-pinnate forms, gradually reduced to attenuate in strongly 2-pinnate forms; pinnules narrow, not auriculate. Veins free, evident. Sori 4--9(--10) pairs per pinna, subcostal, nearly parallel to costae on both basiscopic and acroscopic sides. Spores 64 per sporangium.