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smooth cliffbrake
Pellaea glabella
Pellaea glabella is the smooth cliffbrake. For much of pteridological history, it was regarded as a reduced form or variety of Pellaea atropurpurea. P. glabella is known to exist in two cryptic species, one diploid and one tetraploid. The diploid reproduces sexually, while the tetraploid is normally apogamous. It is now known that the tetraploid form of the species is one of the parents of the original hybrid P. Xatropurpurea that became the apogamous species.
From the article Pellaea glabella on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
This species has sessile or nearly sessile pinnae. Sori are formed on the underside of the pinnae edges and are covered by a false indusium formed by curled under pinna edges. It can be distinguished from Pellaea atropurpurea by its smooth, not hairy, stipe and rachis (the main leaf stalk and stem).
Range & habitat
P. glabella ranges widely in the United States and much of Canada, excluding the northernmost regions and Alaska. P. glabella is epipetric, normally growing on well-weathered limestone, usually in cracks with little or no soil. It can also be found on sandstone and basalt, probably in places where calcium is locally concentrated. It favors more exposed sites than P. atropurpurea.
Wikipedia: “Range and Habitat”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Pellaea glabella in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 122083.