Angiopteris

Note: this tree is still under construction. It does not yet contain all known Angiopteris subgroups.

Introduction

This clade represents Angiopteris in a broad sense, including Archangiopteris, Macroglossum and Protomarattia.

Angiopteris is a genus of perhaps 100 species, occurring from Madagascar to the Pacific islands, and from India and southern Japan to northern Australia.

The taxonomy of the genus Angiopteris is contentious, and species numbers have fluctuated immensely. Mabberley (1997) considered the genus to consist of 200 poorly defined microspecies; Rolleri (2002, 2003) reviewed the genus, dealing with a total of only ten species. It is evident that additional studies are needed to resolve these taxonomic problems and better define the species morphologically and genetically.

Species of Angiopteris are used in the Pacific to perfume coconut oil, and in India the starch from the rhizome is eaten and used to brew an intoxicating drink (Mabberley 1997). Angiopteris evecta is documented as naturalised in Hawaii, Jamaica and Costa Rica (Christenhusz & Toivonen, 2008).

Characteristics

Angiopteris species are large to giant ferns with rhizomes that are globular and radial. The leaves are usually bipinnate, or once pinnate in "Archangiopteris" and A. smithii, and can be gigantic, measuring up to 9 m in length. The pinnae and pinnules are (usually) placed alternately. Veins are free and forked once or twice. The sporangia are almost free, attached only at the base, and are surrounded by a crude annulus of thickened cells; the contractions of which pull the sides of the sporangium apart along a line of dehiscence on the inner face (Christenhusz, 2007).

Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships

The commonly recognised genus Archangiopteris is monophyletic and is sister to the core Angiopteris clade including A. evecta. However, recognizing the Archangiopteris clade as a separate genus would make the genus Angiopteris polyphyletic, and Archangiopteris is therefore included in this genus. The monotypic genus Macroglossum (= Angiopteris smithii) is also well embedded within the Angiopteris clade, and is sister to a clade uniting Archangiopteris and Angiopteris s.s.

References

Christenhusz, M. J. M. (2007). Evolutionary History and Taxnomy of Neotropical Marattioid Ferns: Studies of an ancient lineage of plants. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis ser. AII, tom. 216, pp. 1-134.

Christenhusz, M. J. M. and Toivonen, T. K. (2008). Giants invading the tropics: the oriental vessel fern, Angiopteris evecta (Marattiaceae). Biol. Invasions 10, pp. 1215-1228.

Mabberley, D. (1997). The Plant-Book, a portable dictionary of the vascular plants, second edition, pp. 39. Cambridge University Press.

Murdock, A. (2008). A taxonomic revision of the eusporangiate fern family Marattiaceae, with description of a new genus Ptisana. Taxon 57, pp. 737-755.

Rolleri, C. H. (2002). Caracteres diagnósticos y taxonomía en el género Angiopteris Hoffm. (Marattiaceae Bercht. & J. S. Presl): I, Los caracteres. Revista del Museo de la Plata, Botánica 15 (115), pp. 23-49.

Rolleri, C. H. (2003). Caracteres diagnósticos y taxonomía en el género Angiopteris Hoffm. (Marattiaceae Bercht. & J. S. Presl): II, Sinopsis de las especies. Revista del Museo de la Plata, Botánica 16 (116), pp. 1-23.

Information on the Internet

• Botany Photos: Marattiaceae. Plant Images by Maarten Christenhusz.