Asplenium tutwilerae B.R. Keener & L.J. Davenp.

Tutwiler's Spleenwort

Herb

Perennial

Vascular

Tutwiler's Spleenwort is a native herbaceous evergreen fern in the Spleenwort family (Aspleniaceae). It is known from a single site in west-central Alabama. Tutwiler's Spleenwort grows in crevices of conglomerate sandstone in steep hardwood ravines near a small intermittent stream. Tutwiler's Spleenwort is a fertile allotetraploid of Scott’s Spleenwort (Asplenium × ebenoides R.R. Scott). Scott’s Spleenwort is a sterile hybrid between Walking Fern (Asplenium rhizophyllum Linnaeus) and Ebony Spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron (Linnaeus) Britton, Sterns & Poggenburg). Scott’s Spleenwort occurs sporadically where the ranges of the two parents overlap, but the fertile allotetraploid has only been discovered at one site in Alabama. The epithet "tutwilerae" honors Julia Strudwick Tutwiler who is a famous figure in Alabama history and the discoverer of the only known population of this species in 1873. Tutwiler's Spleenwort is a perennial with a short horizontal or erect rhizome and a fibrous root system. The fronds are dimorphic with sterile fronds being smaller and appressed to the substrate and fertile fronds being larger and erect. The stipe is chestnut to purplish-brown and pubescent with club-shaped hairs. Blades are lanceolate in outline, irregularly pinnate to pinnatifid, with lobed or serrate margins. The blades have long attenuate tips that sometimes form plantlets. Tutwiler's Spleenwort reproduces by forming spores. The spores are in sporangia located in clusters known as sori on the lower surface of the leaf. The sori are covered by a flap of tissue called an indusium that is attached along one side. Tutwiler's Spleenwort is listed as an S1 species in Alabama (typically 5 or fewer occurrences, very few remaining individuals, acres, or miles of stream, or some factor of its biology making it especially vulnerable in the state) and Globally as a G1 species (critically imperiled globally because of extreme rarity (5 or fewer occurrences), or very few remaining acres

The epithet "tutwilerae" honors Julia Strudwick Tutwiler (1841-1916) who is a famous figure in Alabama history and the discoverer of the only known population of this species in 1873.

Native Endemic S1 (State Rank) G1 (Global Rank)

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