Parapolystichum (Keyserl.) Ching, Sunyatsenia

Kessler, Michael, Moran, Robbin C., Mickel, John T., Matos, Fernando B. & Smith, Alan R., 2018, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. XXXV. Dryopteridaceae, Phytotaxa 353 (1), pp. 448-450 : 448-450

Parapolystichum (Keyserl.) Ching, Sunyatsenia 5: 239. 1940.

Until recently, the species now treated in Parapolystichum were placed in Lastreopsis ( Tindale 1965) , but phylogenetic studies have shown them to belong to a distinct evolutionary lineage, with true Lastreopsis being more closely related to Megalastrum and Rumohra ( Schuettpelz & Pryer 2007, Labiak et al. 2014, 2015a, b). Parapolystichum has no known morphological traits that characterize the genus as a whole, but the two Bolivian species are distinct from Lastreopsis by having proliferous buds distally on the rachises. The genus has about 26 species, with four species in the Neotropics, six in Africa, seven in Madagascar, and nine in Australia.