Family: Tectariaceae
Group: Pteridophyte
Native Range:
Apparenly endemic to South Florida, although both parents are in the Bahamas and Cuba.
Map of Locations [currently Florida only]
History in the Bahamas:
Reported by Britton & Millspaugh in 1920 as
Tectaria amesiana ("with hesitation"), based on a specimen collected at Gregory Town, Eleuthera (Coker 372). Coker's specimen (
at NY) has been variously annotated as “fern”, “
Tectaria”, “
Tectaria cicutaria”, and “
Tectaria amesiana A.A. Eaton (?)”. Modern treatments consider
Tectaria x amesiana as endemic to South Florida (for instance, see the
Flora of North America), and it is true that Coker’s specimen does not match the description of
Tectaria amesiana (for example it has pinnate fronds versus fronds pinnatifid [or] with a single pair of lateral pinnae as in
Tectaria amesiana). That said, it also does not match any of the other known Bahamian taxa and may represent an undescribed entity.
