Lygodium hiansE.Fournier (Pteridophyta, Schizaeales) — an endemic unusual ground-clothing member of a modern climbing fern genus in New Caledonia

A colony of a fern, Lygodium hians E.Fournier (Schizaeales), studied on the southwest Pacific Island of New Caledonia, displays a growth form unusual for any member of this genus. Other living species of the genus Lygodium Sw. are characterized by twining fronds, with indefinite growth, which climb extensively on the support provided by other nearby vegetation. These fronds can arise from as early as the sporeling stage and fulfil both vegetative and reproductive functions, with spores produced in lateral sorophores in the upper parts of the fronds. By contrast, in L. hians, climbing fronds are only rarely produced and these carry terminal to subterminal sorophores. The main vegetative growth is of a low-growing (here termed ‘ground-clothing') frond-type, of definite, rather than indefinite, growth and of unusual dichotomous blade structure. This life form has survived, in this rare and little known remote species, under conditions of considerable ecological, as well as geographic, isolation in t...