|
Australian ferns & fern allies |
 DipteridaceaeTerrestrial ferns, rhizome underground, moderately long-creeping, woody, solenostelic with a dense pith, bearing dark reddish wide-based bristles (sometimes appearing scale-like when dry. Frond very long-stipitate, the stipes not articulate to the rhizome, with a single U-shaped vascular strand, the lamina in 2 equal halves, +/- deeply incised between the veins or costae, often glaucous beneath, glabrous or loosely hairy, main lateral veins or costae +/- equally dichotomously branched, the lateral veins forming a single series of primary areoles with included and submarginal areoles with included free veinlets, or as regular cross-veins between the costae with 2 - 3 orders of areoles with included free veinlets. Sporangia borne as discrete round sori at the union of minor veinlets, exindusiate, with filiform glandular paraphyses, annulus complete, oblique; spores monolete, smooth, translucent. DistributionA family of single genus with possible eight species from China to tropical east Asia and Australasia. Three species occur in Papuasia. LiteratureJohns, R.J. & Bellamy, A. 1979. The ferns and fern allies of Papua New Guinea. Part 5: the Dipteridaceae. Pp. 19.1 - 19.10. (published by the P.N.G. Office of Forests). Genera in Australia and Papuasia
NoteSome authors include Dipteris and Cheiropleuria (Cheiropleuriaceae) in the Polypodiaceae; they are kept separate here mainly on the basis of their hairy or bristly rhizomes which would be anomalous in the Polypodiaceae. Australian National Herbarium page Updated November 1999 by Jim Croft (jrc@anbg.gov.au)  |
