Cyathea delgadii Pohl ex Sternb., Vers. Fl. Vorwelt

Lehnert, Marcus & Kessler, Michael, 2018, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. XX. Cyatheaceae, Phytotaxa 334 (2), pp. 118-134 : 126

Cyathea delgadii Pohl ex Sternb., Vers. Fl. Vorwelt 1: 47. 1820.

Range: — Costa Rica and Panama; Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia (BE, CO, LP, SC); eastern Paraguay, northeastern Argentina, and central to eastern Brazil

Ecology: —Common in lower montane rainforests and gallery forests, preferring semi-shade but tolerating full sun, frequent on old landslides and along roads; 300–2000 m.

Notes: —In northeastern Brazil, this species is used medicinally against shoulder dislocation, fever, and itchiness, and as a bath for allergies and dermatitis ( Reinaldo et al. 2015).

A variable species whose extremes can be mistaken for different species, here tentatively distinguished in the key. The typical form is found in perhumid premontane and montane forest of Costa Rica, the Andes and the mata atlântica of Brazil, mainly above 1000 m. The pubescent form occurs in premontane forest with weak seasonality and poor soils in the Venzuelan gran sabana, the Peruvian Huancabamba depression, and the Brazilian campo cerrado and only below 900 m. In Bolivia, it is found in Dept. Santa Cruz at the Andean knee, in the Serranía de Chiquitos and the Serranía de Huanchaca. We regard these forms as responses to the different climatic environments found at the respective elevations/vegetation zones. However, faintly distinct species have been included under C. delgadii , like Cyathea herzogii Rosenst. (see below) and Cyathea eggersii Hieron. (Lehnert et al., unpubl. data), and others may be separable in the future after more careful field studies.