Family · Culcitaceae
Culcitaceae
Culcita ferns
The third tree-fern family documented here, and by far the smallest: a single genus, against the hundreds of species in Cyatheaceae. It was long treated within Dicksoniaceae and was separated once molecular work placed it on its own branch of Cyatheales.
Like some of the Dicksoniaceae, it is a tree fern that builds no trunk. The rhizome creeps through the ground or over rock, thickly clothed in soft hairs, and throws up very large fronds directly from it.
The character that settles the family is at the frond margin: the sorus sits right at the edge of the pinnule, enclosed by two valves that meet like a small clam — the reflexed leaf margin from outside, a true indusium from inside.
Species
0 of 1 published
