Pseudolycopodiella meridionalis (Underw. & Lloyd) Holub (1983: 442)

Øllgaard, Benjamin & Testo, Weston, 2021, The Lycopodiaceae of Panamá, Phytotaxa 526 (1), pp. 1-66 : 60-61

Pseudolycopodiella meridionalis (Underw. & Lloyd) Holub (1983: 442) . Fig. 27

Lycopodiella caroliniana (L.) Pichi-Sermolli var. meridionalis (Underw. & Lloyd) B.Øllg. & Windisch (1987: 27) .— Lycopodium meridionale Underw. & Lloyd (1906: 121) .— Lycopodium carolinianum L. var. meridionalis Nessel (1927: 431) . Type:— PUERTO RICO: Dry savannahs, Luquillo Mountains, Percy Wilson 94 (NY holotype, US, isotype).

Plants with horizontal stems creeping and firmly rooted throughout, bearing one to few, dorsally arising, stiffly erect, simple, strobilus-bearing branches (peduncles). Creeping shoots to ca. 30 cm long, sparsely and unequally branched, 7–12 (–15) mm wide including leaves, 1–2 mm thick excluding leaves, anisophyllous, with long and wide lateral leaves, and usually shorter and narrower dorsal leaves; lateral leaves 3–5 (–7) × (1–) 1.5–2.5 (–3) mm at the base, varying from broadly triangular-ovate to lanceolate (sometimes in the same individual), obliquely spreading to falcately recurved, usually with a strongly curved, underlying acroscopic margin, and short to long-decurrent basiscopic margins, tapering into an acute to long pointed apex, flat, with smooth margins. Dorsal leaves arranged in (1–) 2–4 longitudinal ranks (often on the same individual), broadly lanceolate to subulate (rarely triangular-ovate), diverging to appressed, ­­­ straight to upward curved, (1.5–) 3–4 (–5) × 1–1.3 (–2) mm wide at the base. Erect branches at least to 30 cm tall incl. the strobilus, 1–1.5 mm thick excl. leaves, terete, bearing small, 3–5 mm long, acicular leaves in remote, alternating, spirals or irregular whorls of 4–5, these 4–8 mm apart. Strobili to at least 13 cm long, 3–5 mm thick with appressed sporophylls, 8–10 (–12) mm in diam. incl. spreading sporophyll tips. Sporophylls borne in alternating whorls of (3–) 4 or 5 (–6), forming 8–10 (–12) longitudinal ranks, subpeltate, with a thin, median, basiscopic, decurrent wing; the exterior face rhombic or ovate-acuminate or ovate-cuspidate to triangular-lanceolate, 3.5–6 × (1–) 1.5–2 (–2.5) mm, with subscarious, entire to erose-denticulate, ­­­ minutely fimbriate-denticulate margins. Sporangia reniform, isovalvate, borne on the sporophyll stalk, ca. 1.5–2 mm wide.

Distribution: Widely distributed in tropical America, but rare in the Andes, Central America, Greater and Lesser Antilles, Venezuela, the Guianas, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina.

­­­ Habitats: Terrestrial or sometimes rupestral, usually on wet ground, on road banks, slopes, ledges, grasslands, In Panamá recorded at 0–5 m elev.

­­­ Specimens­­­studied:— Veraguas: Santa Fé, Mouth of Río Concepción, 0–5 m, Lewis et al. 2841 ( MO, NY, PMA). Parque Nacional Santa Fé, La Sabaneta, entrando por Pigual, trocha Piragual — Río Concepción, Hernández 1040 ( PMA)