Synonyms: Polypodium baldwinii Baker; P. knudsenii Hieron.; P. samoense Baker var. glabra Hillebr.
Endemic
Name honors Dwight David Baldwin (1831-1912), American librarian at Yale Law School; principal of Lahaina School, Lahainaluna Seminary, and Hamakuapoko School; inspector general for schools; manager of Kohala Plantation; a pioneer in pineapple culture; and student of Hawaiian natural history, especially land shells, ferns, and mosses.
Plants small, epiphytic. Rhizomes small, erect, 3-5 mm diam., tips covered with golden to tan scales. Fronds clustered at rhizome tips, upright to spreading, 7-19 x 0.4-0.8 cm. Stipes short, usually 1/30-1/8 frond length, dark brown, scaly only at very bases. Blades broadly linear with tapering tips, bases narrowing gradually into stipes, pale green, margins entire, fragile (on herbarium sheets blades almost always fissured and cracked), nearly glabrous (on close examination, a few scattered hairs can be found). Sori submarginal, round to oblong, in regular, single rows on either side of midribs; paraphyses sparse, consisting of short, pointed hairs.
A small epiphyte locally common in mesic to wet forests, 650-1,150 m, Kaua'i only.
Grammitis baldwinii, a rain forest epiphyte from Kaua'i, has small, fragile, simple, pale green, nearly glabrous fronds with entire margins; submarginal sori; rhizome tips covered with golden to tan scales; and very short stipes.