Anetium (Kunze) Splitg.
Descripción
Epiphytic; rhizomes slender, long-creeping, dorsiventral, dictyostelic, densely scaly; rhizome scales clathrate, iridescent; fronds remote; blades simple, entire (edges of larger fronds repand), elliptic, glabrous, each with a midrib; veins anastomosing, forming many series of elongate polygonal (often hexagonal or pentagonal) areoles on both sides of midribs, the long axis of the areoles oblique to the midrib, areoles lacking included veinlets, marginal veinlets short, free; sporangia borne mostly on the veins, but some also between veins in small clusters or larger, irregular patches, not organized into discrete sori, easily abraded or caducous when mature; indusia absent; paraphyses absent; spores tetrahedral-globose, surface of minute, dense, rod-like particles that form a partially reticulate layer, hyaline; gametophytes with paired gemmae; x = 60.A
Forma de vida
EpífitaA
Distribución
México (Country) native and not endemicB
Categoría IUCN
No incluidaC
Categoría NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010
No incluidaD
Discusión taxonómica
Anetium is monotypic and widespread in the Neotropics. According to the phylogenetic reconstruction by Crane (1997), it is sister to Polytaenium, and differs from that by the sporangia being scattered on the veins and often between the veins on laminar tissue; also, the fronds are borne more distantly on the long-creeping rhizomes. See treatment of Radiovittaria for additional comments on relationships of the vittarioid ferns, of which Anetium is a member.A