Calochlaena dubia

Dicksoniaceae

Calochlaena dubia (R.Br.) M.D.Turner & R.A.White

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/99114

Rhizome short- to medium-creeping, 1.5–2 cm thick, bearing red roots, hairy; hairs soft, some short and silvery, others longer and brown. Fronds moderately crowded, 30–150 cm long, erect with drooping tips, green to yellow green. Stipe about as long as lamina, hairy towards the base. Lamina broadly triangular, 3–4-pinnate, 30–80 cm long and broad, herbaceous to coriaceous, sparsely hairy; hairs more dense on the undersurfaces of rachises and veins; rachises pale, often mottled with brown. Ultimate segments oblique to the rachis, bluntly lobed; margins recurved. Sori in 2 marginal rows. 

Endemic to eastern Australia from Windsor Tableland in NE QLD to Tasmania.

Terrestrial in open forest, wet-sclerophyll forest and rainforest margins, usually on hillslopes.

A pioneer in disturbed sites, road banks and cuttings.

1a. Rhizome creeping, rachis undersurfaces sparsely hairy = Calochlaena dubia

1b. Rhizome suberect, rachis undersurfaces densely hairy = Calochlaena villosa