Asplenium difforme is a plant in the spleenwort group of ferns. Its habitat is cracks in rocky headlands beside the sea. It is found in eastern Australia and Norfolk Island. Its fronds are thick and waxy to protect it from sea spray.
Taxonomy
The specific epithet difforme refers to the irregular shape of the fronds. This species first appeared in scientific literature in the year 1810, in the Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae, published by the prolific Scottish botanist, Robert Brown.[1][2]
A global phylogeny of Asplenium published in 2020 divided the genus into eleven clades,[3] which were given informal names pending further taxonomic study. A. difforme belongs to the "Neottopteris clade", members of which generally have somewhat leathery leaf tissue. Its closest relative in the phylogeny was A. dimorphum.[4]
References
- ^ Les Robinson - Field Guide to the Native Plants of Sydney, ISBN 978-0-7318-1211-0 p. 306
- ^ Peter G. Wilson. "Asplenium difforme R.Br". New South Wales Flora Online. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
- ^ Xu et al. 2020, p. 27.
- ^ Xu et al. 2020, p. 31.
- Xu, Ke-Wang; Zhang, Liang; Rothfels, Carl J.; Smith, Alan R.; Viane, Ronald; Lorence, David; Wood, Kenneth R.; Cheng, Cheng-Wei; Knapp, Ralf; Zhou, Lin; Lu, Ngan Thi; Zhou, Xin-Mao; Wei, Hong-Jin; Fan, Qiang; Chen, Su-Fang; Cicuzza, Daniele; Gao, Xin-Fen; Li, Wen-Bo; Zhang, Li-Bing (2020). "A global plastid phylogeny of the fern genus Asplenium (Aspleniaceae)". Cladistics. 36 (1): 22–71. doi:10.1111/cla.12384. PMID 34618950. S2CID 201197385.
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