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Microgramma brunei

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A plant in culture from FranksAntPlants.com.


A wild plant in Peru by Dr. Corine F. Vriesendorp, Fieldmuseum.org.


Closer in Peru by Dr. Corine F. Vriesendorp, Fieldmuseum.org.


A look inside to the ants by Robbin Moran, Plantsystematics.org.

Author: 

David Bruce Lellinger, 1977

Family: 

POLYPODIACEAE

Origin: 

Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

Soil: 

No, Epiphytic

Water: 

Maximum

Sun: 

Minimum - Medium

Thickness: 

4 Centimetres

Height: 

30 Centimetres

Flower: 

No; Yellow Spores

Propagate: 

Spores/Aircuttings

Names: 

The Potato Fern

Synonyms: 

Polypodium brunei, Christ, 1909.
Solanopteris brunei, Warren Herbert Wagner Jr. 1972.  
Microgramma brunei
, Lellinger, 1977.

This member of the Polypodiaceae family was given this name by David Bruce Lellinger in 1977. It is found in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, growing as an epiphyte, but can be grown in sphagnum/coconut fiver mix soil with lots of water and little sun. The each little caudex can grow to four centimetres in diameter, the entire plant to 30 centimetres in height - or length. The spores are yellow.

The genera name from Latin; Micro; 'small' and gramma; 'line'. The species name sounds like it originate from the little independence country of Brunei in Indonesia - but it don't. It does not explain it in Konrad Hermann Heinrich Christ's original publication, but it does mean 'dark' in Latin.


More "hairy potatoes", these from Exoticaesoterica.com.


The spores by Robbin Moran, Plantsystematics.org.