Calochlaena is a genus of ferns within the family Dicksoniaceae.[1] Although these ground ferns resemble bracken, they are only distantly related. Five species are known from Melanesia, Polynesia and eastern Australia. Calochlaena dubia, is a common fern of the east coast of Australia. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek kalos "beautiful" and chlaina "cloak", and refers to the soft hairs on the species.[2]

Calochlaena
Calochlaena dubia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Division: Polypodiophyta
Class: Polypodiopsida
Order: Cyatheales
Family: Dicksoniaceae
Genus: Calochlaena
(Maxon) M.D.Turner & R.A.White
Type species
Calochlaena dubia
(Brown) Turner & White
Species

See text.

The genus was originally described by William Ralph Maxon as a subgenus of the fern genus Culcita, but the differences were such that its members were raised to genus level, and are now considered to be in separate families. Culcita was restricted to two species, one from Mediterranean Europe and one from North America.[3]

Species

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Plants of the World Online as of As of January 2023 recognizes the following species:[4]

Image Scientific name Distribution
  Calochlaena dubia (R. Br.) M.D. Turner & R.A. White Australia
Calochlaena javanica (Blume) M.D. Turner & R.A. White Malesia.
Calochlaena novae-guineae (Rosenst.) M.D. Turner & R.A. White New Guinea.
Calochlaena straminea (Labill.) M.D. Turner & R.A. White Bismarck Archipelago, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Philippines (Mindanao), Samoa, Solomon Island, Vanuatu
Calochlaena villosa (C. Chr.) M.D. Turner & R.A. White New Guinea, Australia (Queensland), Sulawesi

Phylogeny

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Phylogeny of Calochlaena[5][6]

C. straminea (de Labillardière) Turner & White

C. novae-guineae (Rosenstock) Turner & White

C. villosa (Christensen) Turner & White

C. dubia (Brown) Turner & White (False bracken)

C. javanica (Blume) Turner & White

References

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  1. ^ C.Michael Hogan. 2010. Fern. Encyclopedia of Earth. eds. Saikat Basu and C.Cleveland. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington DC.
  2. ^ "Calochlaena". Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), IBIS database. Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, Australian Government.
  3. ^ Richard A. White and Melvin D. Turner (1988). "Calochlaena, a New Genus of Dicksonioid Ferns". American Fern Journal. 78 (3): 86–95. doi:10.2307/1547627. JSTOR 1547627.
  4. ^ "Calochlaena (Maxon) M.D.Turner & R.A.White - Plants of the World Online". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  5. ^ Nitta, Joel H.; Schuettpelz, Eric; Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago; Iwasaki, Wataru; et al. (2022). "An Open and Continuously Updated Fern Tree of Life". Frontiers in Plant Science. 13: 909768. doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.909768. PMC 9449725. PMID 36092417.
  6. ^ "Tree viewer: interactive visualization of FTOL". FTOL v1.4.0 [GenBank release 253]. 2023. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
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