''Cyathea corcovadensis'' is a species of

tree fern The tree ferns are arborescent (tree-like) ferns that grow with a trunk elevating the fronds above ground level, making them trees. Many extant tree ferns are members of the order Cyatheales, to which belong the families Cyatheaceae (scaly tree ...

native to

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

and

Serra do Mar The Serra do Mar (, Portuguese for ''Sea's Ridge'' or ''Sea Ridge'') is a 1,500 km long system of mountain ranges and escarpments in Southeastern Brazil. Geography The Serra do Mar runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean coast from the state ...

in southern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, where it grows in primary and secondary forest, as well as scrub, at an altitude of 250–2100 m. The erect trunk is short, usually about 30–60 cm tall.

Frond A frond is a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group. Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the lar ...

s are

bipinnate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

and 2.5 m or more in length. The

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the grc, ῥάχις [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this c ...

ranges in colour from brown to purplish and is covered with warts and scattered brown scales. Sori occur either between the fertile

pinnule A leaflet (occasionally called foliole) in botany is a leaf-like part of a compound leaf. Though it resembles an entire leaf, a leaflet is not borne on a main plant stem or branch, as a leaf is, but rather on a petiole or a branch of the leaf. Co ...

midvein and the edge of the

lamina Lamina may refer to: Science and technology * Planar lamina, a two-dimensional planar closed surface with mass and density, in mathematics * Laminar flow, (or streamline flow) occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption betwee ...

or just beside the midvein. They lack

indusia A sorus (pl. sori) is a cluster of sporangia (structures producing and containing spores) in ferns and fungi. A coenosorus (plural coenosori) is a compound sorus composed of multiple, fused sori. Etymology This New Latin word is from Ancient Gr ...

. ''C. corcovadensis'' is a variable species, especially in terms of pinnule shape and degree of dissection. The specific

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

''corcovadensis'' refers to

Corcovado Corcovado (korcovádo) which means "hunchback" in Portuguese, is a mountain in central Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a 710-metre (2,329 ft) granite peak located in the Tijuca Forest, a national park. Corcovado hill lies just west of the ci ...

, the 704 m tall peak in central

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

References

*Braggins, John E. & Large, Mark F. 2004. ''Tree Ferns''. Timber Press, Inc., p. 116.
The International Plant Names Index: ''Cyathea corcovadensis''
corcovadensis Flora of Brazil Flora of Paraguay Ferns of the Americas Plants described in 1819 {{Cyatheales-stub