Ctenitis (C.Chr.) C.Chr.
Descripción
Rhizomes mostly suberect to erect, sometimes short-creeping, scaly, with old stipe bases and roots frequently forming stout caudices to 4 cm diam.; fronds small to mediumsized to large, usually clumped; blades herbaceous to chartaceous, pinnate-pinnatifid to quadripinnate or more divided; midribs, especially the adaxial rachises, costae, and costules, with short, reddish to red-brown, jointed hairs (ctenitoid hairs) 0.2–0.8 mm long; rachises and costae abaxially with few to many scales, often these often inrolled, sometimes clathrate, flat or plane, also often with glands and jointed hairs; veins free, simple or forking in the ultimate segments; sori abaxial, round, indusia reniform, attached at sinuses, sometimes greatly reduced or even absent altogether; spores bilateral, spinulose; x=41.A
Forma de vida
TerrestreA
Distribución
México (país) Nativo y no endémicoA
Categoría IUCN
No incluidaB
Categoría NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010
No incluidaC
Discusión taxonómica
Ctenitis is a genus of about 150 species, about evenly distributed between the Old and New World wet tropics, mostly of low and middle elevations. It has usually been thought to be related to the tectarioid ferns and perhaps allied to Tectaria and Lastreopsis. However, unpublished molecular data indicate that this relationship may not be as close as once thought (Hasebe et al., 1995; Cranfill, unpubl. data); rather, Ctenitis may be more intimately related to the dryopteroid clade (rather than the tectarioid clade). Twenty-one species of Ctenitis are known from Mexico, most of them restricted to only the southernmost part of the country. Apparently, southern Mexico and Guatemala, especially in calcareous habitats, are a major center of diversity for the genus in the Neotropics.
Almost all species of Ctenitis have distinctive jointed hairs on the blades, especially on the adaxial rachises, costae, and minor axes. These hairs are usually short, less than 0.5 mm long and often much shorter than that, with very short cells and reddish joints. This kind of hair, often called a ctenitoid hair, is named for the genus, and is an easy character to use in distinguishing Ctenitis from most other genera of ferns, particularly Dryopteris and Thelypteris, with which Ctenitis has historically been combined and confused. Similar hairs are found in Tectaria.
Unplaced Names
Phegopteris inaequalis Fée, Mém. Foug. 8: 91. 1857. Syntypes. Mexico. [Veracruz:] Huatusco, Schaffner 240, 241a; Totutla, Schaffner 241b (RB, cited by Windisch, 1982).
This is said by Fée to be arborescent with a spiny trunk; Fournier (1872) treated it as a synonym of Ctenitis equestris. Christensen (1920: 125) regarded it as of uncertain identity, perhaps a species of Alsophila.
Aspidium obtusilobum Fée, Mém. Foug. 8: 105. 1857, hom. illeg., non Willd., 1810. Dryopteris huatuscensis C. Chr., Index Filic. 271. 1905. Type. Mexico. Veracruz: Huatusco, Schaffner 105 (P?); Smith (1981: 84) cited a possible authentic specimen, Schaffner s.n. (P!), without locality data. This name was treated by Smith (1981) and also by Mickel and Beitel (1988) as a synonym of Ctenitis submarginalis, but the holotype has apparently not been seen by anyone in the last century. It is also possible that the name is a synonym of C. microchlaena, a species not recognized in the earlier floristic accounts for Chiapas and Oaxaca.
A
Almost all species of Ctenitis have distinctive jointed hairs on the blades, especially on the adaxial rachises, costae, and minor axes. These hairs are usually short, less than 0.5 mm long and often much shorter than that, with very short cells and reddish joints. This kind of hair, often called a ctenitoid hair, is named for the genus, and is an easy character to use in distinguishing Ctenitis from most other genera of ferns, particularly Dryopteris and Thelypteris, with which Ctenitis has historically been combined and confused. Similar hairs are found in Tectaria.
Unplaced Names
Phegopteris inaequalis Fée, Mém. Foug. 8: 91. 1857. Syntypes. Mexico. [Veracruz:] Huatusco, Schaffner 240, 241a; Totutla, Schaffner 241b (RB, cited by Windisch, 1982).
This is said by Fée to be arborescent with a spiny trunk; Fournier (1872) treated it as a synonym of Ctenitis equestris. Christensen (1920: 125) regarded it as of uncertain identity, perhaps a species of Alsophila.
Aspidium obtusilobum Fée, Mém. Foug. 8: 105. 1857, hom. illeg., non Willd., 1810. Dryopteris huatuscensis C. Chr., Index Filic. 271. 1905. Type. Mexico. Veracruz: Huatusco, Schaffner 105 (P?); Smith (1981: 84) cited a possible authentic specimen, Schaffner s.n. (P!), without locality data. This name was treated by Smith (1981) and also by Mickel and Beitel (1988) as a synonym of Ctenitis submarginalis, but the holotype has apparently not been seen by anyone in the last century. It is also possible that the name is a synonym of C. microchlaena, a species not recognized in the earlier floristic accounts for Chiapas and Oaxaca.
A