- IPNI Life Sciences Identifier (LSID)
- urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:60452473-2
- Publication
- American Fern Journal; a quarterly devoted to ferns.
- Collation
- 98(4): 235 (-236; f.8,12A)
- Date of Publication
- dt. 2008; issued 27 Mar 2009
- Family as entered in IPNI
- Grammitidaceae
Type Information
- Collector Team
- M. Kessler et al. 11717
- Locality
- trocha al Valle Coscapa, Parque Nacional Cotapata, alt. 3450 m
- Collection Date
- 9 Sep 1997
- Type Herbaria
- holotype LPB
isotype GOET
isotype UC - Latitude
- 16° 12' S
- Longitude
- 67° 53' W
- Distribution Of Types
- Nor Yungas (La Paz, Bolivia, Western South America, Southern America)
Remarks
Protologue: The species is named for its puzzling morphology, which is intermediate between Melpomene flabelliformis and M. moniliformis. Melpomene paradoxa is known from elfin forests and wet montane forests at 2800–3700 m in Peru and Bolivia (Fig. 12A). This species matches M. flabelliformis in the rhizome and scale size, but is closer to M. moniliformis regarding the scale color, laminar shape, and hair distribution. The scales of M. paradoxa are not as strongly iridescent as in M. flabelliformis, and despite having often the same amount of hairs in the sori as that species, M. paradoxa lacks the hairs between the sori that are typical of M. flabelliformis. Melpomene flagellata differs from M. paradoxa in having longer setiform/ciliform hairs (1.2–1.8 mm) in a denser pubescence on the petioles; it also has most of the segment tips truncate (vs. always obtuse or rounded in M. paradoxa). Melpomene caput-gorgonis has shorter petioles than M. paradoxa, often relatively wider, elliptic laminae (vs. laminae linear in M. paradoxa), and conspicuously multiple capitate hairs at the scale tips (vs. cells as a single branched clavate hair).