Pyrrosia Mirb.

Felt Ferns

4 species native AUST.; Qld, N.S.W.

Epiphytes on trees or growing on rocks. Rhizome long-creeping or shortly creeping, dictyostelic, densely clothed with persistent, non-clathrate scales which are fimbriate or entire and usually have a dark central spot on the expanded, peltately affixed base. Stipes articulated to the rhizome; the prolongation clothed with the same type of scales as those of the rhizome; the stipes short or sometimes up to twice as long as the lamina, usually ± clothed with caducous, stellate hairs. Lamina usually simple, mostly entire, thick, coriaceous, uniform or more rarely dimorphic, linear or elliptic or ovoid or spathulate or hastate or oblanceolate, ± clothed with a dense, often interwoven tomentum of stellate-peltate hairs; the base of the lamina cuneate, sometimes decurrent on the stipes. Veins complex and reticulate with free vein-endings, mostly obscure and hidden in the thick lamina. Sori exindusiate, superficial or partly submerged, occurring in numerous closely packed rows or more rarely 1–2-seriate, rounded or rarely oblong, often confluent in age. Paraphyses stellate. Sporangia rounded or cuneate; the annulus including 14–24 thick-walled cells; the pedicel elongated, composed of 2–3 rows of cells. Spores bilateral, rugose or minutely tuberculate or smooth, yellow or hyaline. Hydathodes pitted or often punctate, numerous on the upper surface or near the margin, absent in some species.