Gaga Pryer, F.W.Li & Windham, Syst. Bot.

Kessler, Michael, Smith, Alan R. & Prado, Jefferson, 2017, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. XXVII. Pteridaceae, Phytotaxa 332 (3), pp. 201-250 : 212

Gaga Pryer, F.W.Li & Windham, Syst. Bot. 37(4): 855. 2012.

Species of Gaga have previously been treated as belonging to the heterogenous genus Cheilanthes . Gaga is monophyletic and comprises 19 species, all New World, a few in southwestern United States but mostly in Mexico ( Mickel & Smith 2004), with northwestern Argentina being the southern tip of the range of the most widespread species, G. marginata ( Li et al. 2012) , the only species in Bolivia. Gaga is sister to Aspidotis , a genus of four spp. mostly in western North America (California) and northeastern Mexico; it differs from Aspidotis in its rounded to attenuate (vs. mucronate) ultimate segments, minutely bullate margins of mature leaves (vs. smooth), and less prominently lustrous and striate adaxial blade surfaces. From Cheilanthes , Gaga differs in its strongly differentiated inframarginal pseudoindusia, production of 64 small or 32 large globose spores per sporangium (vs. 32 small or 16 large spores), and usually glabrous blades. Rhizomes are short and compact, horizontal to ascending; rhizome scales lanceolate, brown to black and either concolorous or with a dark mid-stripe. Rachises are usually grooved adaxially, and bades are 2-to 4-pinnate, deltate to pentagonal, with basiscopic pinnules larger than more distal pinnules on the same pinna. Pinnules are ovate, or often oblong to linear, with veins ending in prominent hydathodes adaxially. Pseudoindusia are glabrous or often glandular-hairy, and these sometimes are decurrent along the subtending segment stalk. Base chromosome number is x = 30.