Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.
Copy permalink to share | Check for keys that lead to this key
1 Leaves pinnatifid or bipinnatifid, the pinnae not fully divided from one another (the rachis winged by leaf tissue most or all of its length). | |
4 Leaves of an herbaceous, subcoriaceous, or coriaceous texture, > 1 cell thick; sori otherwise; [various habitats, not strictly of moist sites]. | |
5 Leaf blades > 7 cm long, glabrescent or hairy with hairs < 1 mm long. | |
8 Leaves of an herbaceous, subcoriaceous, or coriaceous texture, > 1 cell thick; sori otherwise or sporangia not grouped in sori; [various habitats, not strictly of moist sites]. | |
10 Sporangia borne on the lower surface of green leaves; [collectively widespread] | |
11 Veins anastamosing (rejoining one another) to form a netlike pattern of areoles. | |
12 Costae rounded or flat on the upper side, with red, multicellular hairs; margins of segments entire or with rounded lobes | |
13 Sori on the undersurface of the leaf, marginal and more-or-less hidden beneath either the unmodified revolute leaf margin or under a modified, reflexed false indusium | |
7 Leaves bipinnate or more divided. | |
14 Leaf blade pentagonal, broadly triangular, or narrowly triangular in outline, ca. 1-2.5× as long as wide. | |
15 Leaf blade either ovate, pentagonal, or broadly triangular in outline, mostly 0.8-2× as long as wide. | |
17 Leaves monomorphic. | |
19 Leaf blade pentagonal in outline, the terminal pinna by far the largest; rhizome 5-8 mm in diameter; indusia present, thick, persistent, and reniform; [introduced species, rarely naturalized] | |
14 Leaf blade elongate, mostly lanceolate, generally > 4× as long as wide (except in Adiantum, with leaf blade often only 1.5-3× as long as wide, but not notably triangular or pentagonal in outline). | |
22 Veins ending short of the margin; indusium attached under the sorus, either cup-like (divided into 3-6 lanceolate to ovate lobes which surround the sorus from below) or of minute numerous septate hairs, which extend out from under the sorus on all sides; petioles often densely beset with scales, the petiole bases persistent |
Copy permalink to share | Check for keys that lead to this key
1 Leaf vine-like, 0.3-10 m long, the branching dichotomous, 1 branch of each dichotomy terminating in a pair of pinnae, the pinnae often widely spaced (> 10 cm apart) | |
2 Leaves (at least the sterile leaves if the leaves are dimorphic) 1-pinnate-pinnatifid or less divided (the pinnae entire, toothed, lobed or pinnatifid). | |
4 Sori marginal, continuous, covered by a reflexed false indusium along the leaf margin; pinnae usually opposite, linear, not toothed or lobed | |
4 Sori neither marginal nor continuous, slightly to entirely covered by an elongate or roundish indusium (sometimes ciliate, toothed, or divided into narrow segments); pinnae usually at least in part alternate, mostly lanceolate, toothed, lobed, or pinnatifid. | |
8 Leaves dark-green, subcoriaceous to coriaceous; pinnae not articulate and deciduous with age; rhizome not producing stolons; indusia peltate | |
7 Leaves 1-pinnate-pinnatifid or 2-pinnatifid, the pinnae pinnatifid, generally lacking a prominent basal lobe; indusia either reniform or cuplike. | |
13 Sori marginal and borne on the underside of the false indusium (modified, marginal flaps of the leaf margin); petioles and rachis shiny black or reddish-black; pinnules fan-shaped or obliquely elongate | |
14 Outline of the leaf blade slightly if at all narrowed to the base, the widest point < 5 pinna pairs from the base, the lowermost pinnae > 1/2 as long as the longest pinnae; rhizomes short-creeping, the leaves clustered, not forming clonal patches (or with rhizomes long-creeping, leaves scattered, forming clonal patches in Dennstaedtia in DENNSTAEDTIACEAE). | |
15 Rhizomes long-creeping, leaves scattered, forming clonal patches; vascular bundles in the petiole 1, U-shaped (even in the lower petiole); sori very small, marginal in sinuses, the indusium cup-like, 2-parted, the outer part a modified tooth of the leaf blade; leaf blades conspicuously puberulent with septate glandular hairs | |
15 Rhizomes short-creeping, the leaves clustered, not forming clonal patches; vascular bundles in the petiole 2-7 (sometimes uniting to 1 in the upper petiole); sori mostly larger, mostly not marginal, the indusium not as above (though cup-like in Woodsia obtusa); leaf blades either glabrous, glabrescent, with flattened scales, or puberulent with glandular trichomes. | |
18 Leaves 1-pinnate-pinnatifid; indusium cup-like, attached beneath the sorus and consisting of 3-6 lanceolate to ovate segments | |
18 Leaves 2-pinnate-pinnatifid; indusium flap-like, pocket-like, or hood-like, attached at one side of the sorus and arching over it. | |