Angiopteris Explained

Angiopteris is a genus of huge evergreen ferns from the family Marattiaceae, found throughout the paleotropics from Madagascar to the South Pacific islands. Species of smaller stature with elongate synangia and creeping rhizomes are sometimes segregated into the genus Archangiopteris, and a once-pinnate monotypic segregate genus has been called Macroglossum, but molecular data supports inclusion of these taxa within a broad concept of Angiopteris.

Angiopteris evecta has been introduced and naturalized in Hawaii, Jamaica, and parts of Central America, where it has become an invasive weed in lower elevation drainages. They feature a large, erect, woody rhizome with a wide base supported by thick roots. The fronds are deltoid, pinnate, 5- long, with spreading leaflets.^[1]

Angiopteris is unique among ferns in having explosively dispersed spores, thought to be caused by the cavitation of an airspace between spore layers.

The basal chromosome number for this genus is 2n=80. The type species is Angiopteris evecta.

Species

Angiopteris taxonomy is poorly understood, with nearly 200 poorly defined species having been named, only a small handful of which are recognized in modern floras .

Phylogeny of Angiopteris^{[2] [3]}

Unassigned species:

• Angiopteris brooksii Copel.
• Angiopteris cadierei (C.Chr. & Tardieu) Govaerts & Christenh.
• Angiopteris chongsengiana Senterre & I.Fabre
• Angiopteris confertinervia Ching ex C.Chr. & Tardieu
• Angiopteris crassipes Wall.
• Angiopteris elliptica Alderw.
• Angiopteris ferox Copel.
• Angiopteris holttumii C.Chr.
• Angiopteris javanica C.Presl
• Angiopteris latipinna (Ching) Z.R.He, W.M.Chu & Christenh.
• Angiopteris microura Copel.
• Angiopteris oblanceolata Ching & Chu H.Wang
• Angiopteris opaca Copel.
• Angiopteris paucinervis W.M.Chu & Z.R.He
• Angiopteris remota Ching & Chu H.Wang
• Angiopteris sparsisora Ching
• Angiopteris subcuspidata Rosenst.
• Angiopteris subrotundata (Ching) Z.R.He & Christenh.
• Angiopteris sugongii Gui L.Zhang, J.Y.Xiang & Ting Wang
• Angiopteris undulatostriata Hieron.
• Angiopteris versteegii Alderw.
• Angiopteris winkleri Rosenst.

Notes and References

1. Ellison, Don (1999) Cultivated Plants of the World. London: New Holland (1st ed.: Brisbane: Flora Publications International, 1995)
2. Nitta . Joel H. . Schuettpelz . Eric . Ramírez-Barahona . Santiago . Iwasaki . Wataru . et al. . 2022 . An Open and Continuously Updated Fern Tree of Life . Frontiers in Plant Science . 13 . 909768. 10.3389/fpls.2022.909768 . 36092417. 9449725. free.
3. Web site: et al. . 2023 . Tree viewer: interactive visualization of FTOL . FTOL v1.5.0 [GenBank release 256] . 17 August 2023.