Three New Anemias from Northern South America

Abstract

Of the over 100 species of Anemia, about 65 are found in southern and eastern Brazil with a secondary center of speciation in Mexico (20 species). Central America and the western and northern portions of South America have provided relatively few species, those being mostly very widespread taxa. Apparently this is a misleading picture since we here report three new species from northern South America-one from northern Brazil and two from essentially a single locality near Puerto Ayacucho in southern Venezuela. All three species are known from single collections and were found among granite rocks. It would seem that these areas have not been well collected, and since Anemia generally favors grassy and/or rocky habitats, there may be additional taxa yet to be discovered in southern Venezuela and Colombia and northern Brazil. pinnis fertilibus brevibus antrorsis falcatis et laminae pilis contortis discreta. (L., antrorsus, directed upward, referring to the habit of the fertile pinnae.) Rhizome horizontal, compact, ca. 6 mm diam., with brownish-yellow hairs, 5- 8 mm long; fronds erect, sterile and fertile fronds alike, 28-34 cm long; stipe slightly less than half the sterile frond length and slightly more than half the fertile frond length, densely hirsute with orange hairs 3-5 mm long; blade del- tate-ovate, 15-17 cm long, 8-10 cm broad, bipinnate-pinnatifid, lamina papyra- ceous, dull, pilose on both surfaces with multicellular hairs 0.5-1.0 mm long (twisted on abaxial surface), densely tomentose on rachillae, lower surfaces and rachis; sterile pinnae 9-12 pairs, subsessile (petiolules 1-2 mm), upper pinnae perpendicular to the rachis, lower pinnae slightly ascending, 5-7 pinnules per pinna, the lower pinnae slightly more exaggerated basiscopically, lobes acute to obtuse, margin entire to crenulate; veins free, evident; fertile pinnae remote from the sterile pinnae, ca. half as long as the adjacent sterile pinnae, ascending at 55? angle to strongly upwardly falcate, short-petiolulate (3-4 mm), the ultimate divisions with narrow laminar tissue; spores tetrahedral, vertically compressed, striate, the ridges broad with narrow grooves between, 69-79 (av. 76.1) ,tm diam. (Figs. 2A, B). This species bears a strong resemblance to A. tomentosa var. australis Mickel, but A. antrorsa is quite distinct with its short, suberect pinnae, strongly hairy stipe and rachis, and twisted abaxial laminar hairs. Such habit for fertile pinnae is otherwise well known in the genus, occurring in all three subgenera: subg.