Common Name: BRAKE FAMILY Habit: Perennial herb, in soil or on or among rocks; rhizome creeping to erect, scaly. Leaf: generally all +- alike (or of 2 kinds, fertile, sterile), generally < 50 cm, often < 25 cm; stipe generally thin, wiry, often dark, ×-section with vascular strands generally 1--3, less often many in circle; blade generally pinnate or +- palmate-pinnate (see Adiantum), often >= 2-compound, abaxially often with glands, +- powdery exudate, hairs, or scales; segments round, oblong, fan-shaped, or other, veins generally free. Sporangia: in sori or not, marginal, submarginal, or along veins, covered by recurved, often modified segment margins (false indusia) or not; true indusia 0; spores spheric, sides flat or not, scar with 3 radiating branches. Genera In Family: +- 40 genera, 500 species: worldwide, especially dry areas. Note: CA members of Cheilanthes moved to the distantly related Myriopteris; Pellaea breweri to be moved as well, from a to-be-redefined Pellaea; traditional, often untenable limits of genera outside CA also being clarified using molecular phylogenetics. eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux, except as noted Scientific Editor: Alan R. Smith, Thomas J. Rosatti.
Common Name: CLIFF-BRAKE Habit: Plant in soil or rock crevices; rhizome short- to long-creeping, scales overlapped, narrowly linear, light- to red- or medium-brown, often with dark mid-stripe. Leaf: erect, persistent, < 1 m; stipes +- cylindric, generally dark or red-brown to +- black, +- shiny, glabrous; blade 1--4-pinnate; segments generally stalked, generally free, linear to rounded, lobed or not, often folded lengthwise when dried; veins generally free. Sporangia: in +- continuous, submarginal bands, among a +- white to +- yellow exudate or not; segment margin generally recurved, generally modified; spores tan to light yellow. Etymology: (Greek: dusky, from blue-gray leaves) Note: Occasionally cultivated. Molecular data suggest Pellaea in the sense of Tryon (1957) is polyphyletic with monophyletic Astrolepis and Pellaea sect. Platyloma, as well as elements of Paragymnopteris and Paraceterach nested within (Kirkpatrick, 2007). eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith, Thomas Lemieux & Edward Alverson Reference: Kirkpatrick 2007 Syst Bot 32:504--518 Unabridged Reference: Kirkpatrick, R.E.B. 2007. Investigating the monophyly of Pellaea (Pteridaceae) in the context of a phylogenetic analysis of cheilanthoid ferns. Syst Bot 32:504--518; Tryon 1957 Ann Missouri Bot Gard 44(2):125--193
Common Name: BIRD'S-FOOT FERN Habit: Rhizome short-creeping, branched, > 8 cm, 0.5--1 cm wide; scales +- brown, mid-stripe dark. Leaf: +- clustered, +- green to +- purple; stipe < 2(3) mm wide; blade 2--3(4)-pinnate, narrowly triangular to oblong; segments 2--6(8) mm, 0.5--2(4) mm wide, linear to oblong, with mucro. Sporangia: 64-spored. Chromosomes: 2n=58.
Pellaea mucronata (D.C. Eaton) D.C. Eaton var. mucronata
NATIVE Leaf: 20--40(60) cm, 5--15 cm wide; blade 2--3(4)-pinnate; pinnae not overlapped, generally +- spreading to widely ascending; fertile segments not appearing folded in half, recurved margins not meeting abaxially. Ecology: Rocky or dry areas; Elevation: 20--2400 m. Bioregional Distribution: KR, NCoR, CaR, SN, GV (Sutter Buttes), CW, SW, SNE, DMoj (desert mtns and lower montane slopes, canyons); Distribution Outside California: Baja California. Note: Hybrids with Pellaea brachyptera (pinnae linear, well-spaced on elongate 2 ×-pinnate axes), Pellaea truncata (some pinnae irregularly lobed, costae +- 90° from rachis) +- common. Jepson eFlora Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith, Thomas Lemieux & Edward Alverson Reference: Kirkpatrick 2007 Syst Bot 32:504--518 Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Previous taxon: Pellaea mucronata var. californica Next taxon: Pellaea truncata
Citation for this treatment: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith, Thomas Lemieux & Edward Alverson 2012, Pellaea mucronata var. mucronata, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=75897, accessed on December 03, 2024.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on December 03, 2024.
Geographic subdivisions for Pellaea mucronata var. mucronata:
KR, NCoR, CaR, SN, GV (Sutter Buttes), CW, SW, SNE, DMoj (desert mtns and lower montane slopes, canyons)
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(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurrence).
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Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA.
Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).