乌木蕨属 wu mu jue shu

Authors: Wang Faguo, Prof. Fuwu Xing & Masahiro Kato

Plants epiphytic, small to moderate-sized. Rhizome creeping, dark brown, dictyostelic, densely scaly; scales rufous, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate. Fronds distant, long stipitate; stipe grooved adaxially, sparsely scaly at base; lamina pectinately pinnatisect, lanceolate in outline, subleathery, both surfaces glabrous; pinnae adnate, oblong, margin entire, apex subacute or obtuse; lower few pairs of pinnae shorter; veins anastomosing with 1-3 rows of areoles. Sori linear, forming coenosori adjacent and parallel to costa; indusium attached to commissure, facing toward costa. Spores elliptic, with perispore.

One species: China, India, Myanmar.

Blechnidium is most closely related to Struthiopteris and isolated from the rest. It is included within Blechnum by Christenhusz et al. (Phytotaxa 19: 34. 2011).

Lower Taxon

• Blechnidium melanopus (Hooker) T. Moore