Tonguefern

Description

Elaphoglossum is a genus of tree plants. It is included in the Dryopteridaceae family . Elaphoglossum poses some interesting challenges at the taxonomic level, because it is a large genus, its species are similar, and the characters that distinguish them are typically few and subtle. There have been several attempts to split Elaphoglossum in smaller groups to make it more manageable taxonomically (Fée 1845; Sodiro 1893; Christ 1899; Mickel and Atehortúa 1980). The most recent and comprehensive of these (Mickel and Atehortúa 1980), recognized 9 sections and 21 subsections. More recently phylogenetic molecular analyses have shed some light into the relationships within Elaphoglossum (Rouhan et al. 2004; Skog et al. 2004), and have clearly supported five of the nine sections originally proposed by Mickel and Atehortúa on the basis of morphology. With approximately 600 species, Elaphoglossum (Dryopteridaceae) is one of the most diverse genera of ferns (Mickel, 1995). It has a pantropical distribution, occurring principally in wet-montane and cloud forests. The center of diversity is tropical America, which harbors ca. 450 described species (Mickel, 1990). Other centers of diversity are Africa and Madagascar (ca. 70 species), and Southeast Asia (ca. 50 species) (Rouhan, 2005).