Blotiella currorii (Hook.) R.M. Tryon
Synonyms |
Pteris currorii Hook. |
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Common name |
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Description |
Rhizome massive, erect or short-creeping, thick and woody, bearing dense ferruginous or golden hairs. Fronds tufted, firmly herbaceous. Stipe straw-coloured or brownish, up to 1 m with a dense felt of brown hairs up to 1 cm long at base, sparsely set with short hairs pubescent or hairless above. lamina broadly ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, up to 90 x 60 cm, deeply 2-pinnatifid to 2-pinnate. Pinnae broadly ovate-lanceolate in outline, up to 35 x 6 cm long, apex pointed, increesingly deeply incised from the apex to the base. Segments subopposite, lanceolate in outline, apex coming to a point, margins wavy, up to 5 x 2 cm; with rounded sinuses between the lobes; segments hairless except for scattered minute white hairs along the costae and costules. Rhachis straw-coloured, with short hairs especially around the bases of the pinnae. Sori narrow, linear, continuous or interrupted, about 0.6 mm wide; indusia very narrow, membranous. |
Notes | B. mannii is also treated as an accepted species. In FTEA B. mannii is placed in synonym with B. currorii, they being inseparable and there being intermediates (Verdcourt, 1999). |
Derivation | currorii: named after A.B. Curror (1811-1845?) of HMS Water-Witch, Scottish surgeon and plant collector in Angola in the 1840's. |
Habitat | Moist evergreen forest, deep shade. |
Distribution worldwide | Tropical Africa. |
Distribution in Africa |
Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Dem. Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea (incl. Bioko), Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Zambia. |
Growth form |
Terrestrial. |
Literature |
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