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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Aspleniaceae
Asplenium

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 1078 (1753).

Derivation: Greek asplenon, name of a fern considered to be a cure for diseases of the spleen; from a-, without; splen, spleen.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Spleenworts.

Description:
Rhizome short, erect or creeping, clad in clathrate scales; fronds simple, pinnate or decompound, small to very large; soft oblong, oblique to the midrib of the pinnule, covered by an indusium at least when young.

Distribution:  Cosmopolitan; about 650 species.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Sori close to the margin; pinnae lanceolate
A. bulbiferum 1.
1. Sori away from the margin; pinnae flabellate-cuneate or suborbicular-oblong
 
2. Pinnae flabellate-cuneate; rhachis greenish, usually elongating well beyond the pinnae and often proliferous at its tip
A. flabellifolium 2.
2. Pinnae suborbicular-oblong; rhachis a dark purplish black, terminated by a pinnule
A. trichomanes 3.

Author: Not yet available

image of FSA1_Asplenium.jpg
Image source: fig. 17i in J.P. Jessop and H.R. Toelken Ed. 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

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