Cyathea pungens (Willd.) Domin, Pteridophyta

Lehnert, Marcus & Kessler, Michael, 2018, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. XX. Cyatheaceae, Phytotaxa 334 (2), pp. 118-134 : 129

Cyathea pungens (Willd.) Domin, Pteridophyta 263. 1929.

= Alsophila bulligera Rosenst., Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 25: 57. 1928.

= Trichipteris procera (Willd.) R.M.Tryon, Contr. Gray Herb. 200: 46. 1970.

Range: —Greater Antilles?; Venezuela to French Guiana, Colombia to Bolivia (BE, CO, LP, PD, SC); Brazil.

Ecology: —Very common in lowland forests and lower montane forests, in the understory, often near water courses; 150–1500 m. In Amazonian Ecuador, it is characteristic of swamp forests ( Macía 2011).

Notes: — Cyathea pungens is a common understory tree fern found mainly in the lowlands. It belongs to a species complex that has few distinguishing characters, and their variability is not yet fully understood. Species of this complex have yellowish frond axes when dried and a blackish spot at the base of the costules, indicating an abscission layer where the pinnules fall off in dead fronds and improperly dried specimens. Cyathea dombeyi (see above) and C. oblonga (Klotzsch) Domin from the Guayana Shield ( Cremers & Boudrie 2007) are species that at some point had been synonymized and are still often confused with C. pungens .