Red-hair comb fern, Florida tree fern

Polypodium sloanei Poeppig ex Sprengel, Syst. Veg. 4(1): 59. 1827

Petiole scales orangish, rarely brown, linear or filiform, 20--40 × 0.4--1.5 mm, densely tangled and woollike. Blade 2--4-pinnate-pinnatifid, glabrous or glandular on both surfaces; glands pale yellow, ca. 0.1 mm, appressed. Basal pinnae 22--50 × 10--23 cm, inequilateral, elongate basiscopically. Ultimate segments 2--4 mm wide; margins ciliate. Veins 3--6 pairs per segment, unbranched or 1-forked. Sori medial to inframedial; indusia present but soon deciduous and therefore appearing absent. 2 n = 82.

Wooded limestone ledges, hammocks, cypress swamps; 0 m; Fla.; s Mexico; West Indies in Antilles, Trinidad; Central America; South America in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

The names Ctenitis ampla (Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow) Ching and Dryopteris ampla (Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow) Kuntze have been misapplied to this taxon. Ctenitis sloanei and C . submarginalis both have numerous scales at the base of the petiole; in C . sloanei , however, the scales form a large, conspicuous, tangled tuft.