Tectaria Cav., Anales Hist. Nat.

Kessler, Michael & Smith, Alan R., 2018, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. XXXVIII. Tectariaceae, Phytotaxa 334 (3), pp. 248-254 : 250

Tectaria Cav., Anales Hist. Nat. 1(2): 115. 1799.

A large, variable, and somewhat unwieldy genus with many generic synonyms that is difficult to characterize. Most species have a combination of finely areolate venation with areoles often (but not always) containing free included veinlets; proximal pinnae each with a basal basiscopic lobe or an elongated pinnule; and round, abaxial sori; sori generally abaxial, not close to the blade margins, indusiate (as in all Bolivian species) and indusia peltate, round-reniform, or occasionally J-shaped (athyrioid), but indusia lost in some lineages. Some extraterritorial species are strongly dimorphic, and others have marginal sori (or even coenosori). A pantropical genus of about 230 species, with at least 30 currently recognized species in the Neotropics ( Morton 1966, Holttum 1986b, Kessler & Smith 2007, Rojas-Alvarado & Sanín 2014). The genus appears to be of Asian origin, with the American species falling into a monophyletic clade ( Zhang et al. 2017). The genus Draconopteris , a single species, has recently been segregated ( Zhang et al. 2016), largely on the basis of molecular evidence. The genus Tectaria is one of the most common and conspicuous fern genera in neotropical lower elevation forests, showing a preference for nutrient-rich soils ( Tuomisto & Poulsen 1996).

The genus, and, in the Neotropics, especially the species centered around Tectaria incisa , are in need of detailed taxonomic study; not all Bolivian specimens can at present be reliably placed in the recognized species. In a series of papers on Tectaria in the Neotropics, primarily those occurring from areas in Costa Rica to Peru, Rojas-Alvarado has described nine new species, a new variety, as well as a new interspecific hybrid (involving T. lizarzaburui ) in the genus ( Rojas-Alvarado 2001, 2004, 2006 a, 2006b, Rojas-Alvarado & Sanín 2014), and also cited new distributional records. In the most recent of these papers, the authors presented a key to the 28 species occurring in the area from Costa Rica to Colombia. One of these new species described ( Rojas-Alvarado 2001), T. pascoensis , is now known from Bolivia and treated herein; others may eventually be found to occur further south in the Andes as well: Tectaria atropurpurea A.R.Sm. , from Ecuador and Peru; T. andina (Sodiro) C.Chr. , from Colombia and Peru; T. chimborazensis (C.Chr.) C.Chr. , from Ecuador and Peru; Tectaria microsora A.R.Sm. , from Ecuador and Peru; and T. pubens R.C.Moran , from Peru. Jeferson Costa (BHCB) has recently revised Tectaria in the Neotropics, but this work is still unpublished.