hello! Im working in a conservation Project of recovering the habitat of the AZOREAN BULFINCH bird. This bird is the most threaned bird in europe and is the only one that eats ferns. We have registed 4 types of ferns in theirs diet, unfortunatly we arent able to identify 1 of them. Could u help me? I send the photos from it? Thank you very mutch. Carlos SPEA LIFE/BULFINCH PROJECT www.spea.pt
Have you tried your local botanists' organizations or university botanists for lists of local flora? This would narrow it down considerably. I will try to plow through my fern book over the next couple of days, but even if I can find a likely name, you would have to confirm it somehow, and so having fern experts or local flora experts involved seems like a necessary step.
I'm certainly not a fern expert, but I would find it easier to identify the fern if the sporangial cases (sori) on the back of the frond were visible. In general, the patterns made by the sori are usually distinctive enough that preliminary identification to genus can be made. On the other hand, a local (i.e., western European) fern expert might be able to make an identification based upon the short distinctively hairy rhizome and shape of the frond alone. Good luck.
Looks very similar to Polystichum setiferum, except that has a more scaly frond stem. Photos for comparison: http://www.plant-identification.co.uk/skye/aspidiaceae/polystichum-setiferum.htm Flora Europaea gives it as native in the Azores: http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/cgi-bin/nph-readbtree.pl/feout?FAMILY_XREF=&GENUS_XREF=Polystichum&SPECIES_XREF=setiferum&TAXON_NAME_XREF=&RANK=
I didn't think it looked like a Polystichum setiferum; thought it was more Thelypteris like, and was even wondering if it had to be a hardy fern or might be a more tropical one - what is the lowest winter temperature in a typical Portugal winter? Also, I thought the top left photo maybe showed the underside of the fern, albeit with very limited sori present.
i also dont think its a polystichum setiferum..........i'd have said more like a form of Dryopteris.........a picture of a full size plant, in its natural habitat would be most useful.
The bristle tips to the pinnules make it a good chance of being a Polystichum. Both Dryopteris and Thelypteris have more rounded pinnules. But it isn't too easy to see with the pic being a bit out of focus. The Azores are warm temperate oceanic - cool summers, mild winters; lowest temperatures depend on altitude, about 10°C at sea level, but down to about -5°C minimum at the higher altitudes where Azores Bullfinch occurs on São Miguel.
The stipe is too long for Polystichum, and the pinnules are contiguous/attached to the stem of the pinna (hope to heck I've got my lingo right here). I'd be interested in knowing whether any more observations of the plant in its habitat are available - how the fronds unfurl, and whether it seems to clump or run.
Not sure the stipe is too long for a plant in a shady crevice. The pinnules being contiguous is OK for the distal part of the pinnae, tho' not for the basal pinnules; but it isn't easy to see on the photo if they are genuinely contiguous or just overlapping. Looking through Dryopteris in Flora Europaea native to the Azores, it isn't any of the widespread European species that occur on the Azores, and the Azores endemic D. crispifolia doesn't look right: http://www.azorenflora.de/dryopteris_crispifolia.html nor does D. azorica either: http://www.horta.uac.pt/species/plantae/Dryopteris_azorica/Dryopteris_azorica.htm The only Polystichum on the Azores is P. setiferum. I guess we won't be able to proceed further without a clearer photo - can the specimen be put on a scanner and scanned at 200 or 400 dpi for a better pic?
I'm pretty sure this fern is not Polystichum setiferum, because it as not a typical pinule design characteristic of that species. I think better that it is one of the Dryopteris genera because it has little spikes in the pinule that I found in other ferns from this genera, but this is just the vision of a non-expert. I send another photo of the fern attached. Thanks a lot for the help!
Thanks for the shaper pic! What is the status and habitat of this fern? Is it abundant, or uncommon? Could it be an introduced species? It definitely is not an Azorean native Dryopteris - the species with serrated pinnules (D. aemula, D. azorica, D. crispifolia, D. dilatata, etc) all have much broader basal pinnae; the species with slender basal pinnae (D. affinis, etc) all have entire or at most only slightly, bluntly lobed pinnules. The pinna detail still looks good (very good, actually) for Polystichum setiferum, but the nearly scale-less rachis is odd for that. So I'm wondering if it may be a species not native to the Azores - hence my queries above.
could it possibly be a hybrid (i know its very rare for ferns to cross) but im informed not impossible, stranger things have happened.
Well I am going to own myself stumped on this one; I have flipped through my book and looked at the ferns in my garden until I don't know which way is up. At this point you could convince me that it was anything from Athyrium otophorum to Dryopteris odontoloma to Polystichum anything - my eyes are crossing! I can't even tell for certain whether it has the classic "polystichum thumb" that I once heard about from Judith Jones. Besides me not having the expertise to differentiate among very similar ferns, I think we just don't know enough about the fern - how it grows, spreads, and unfurls, what the sori look like, whether it is deciduous, whether it is definitely native - to identify it. I think you need to go direct to serious pteridologists for help.
It does appear to have a bit of the 'Polystichum thumb' - though not as much as one would expect. I'd agree, this one needs a herbarium specimen sending to one or another botanical institution
This is an old post, but perhaps you are still looking for an answer. It could be a young Cyathea cooperi (syn. Sphaeropteris cooperi), Cooper's Tree Fern, introduced in the Azores. The very fine scales and pinnae shape are about right.
