Common names: maku'e lau li'i (small-leaved maku'e)

Indigenous                  

Name honors William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, author of Species Filicum and Synopsis Filicum, and coauthor of Icones Filicum, all influential works on fern taxonomy.

Plants small, epiphytic. Rhizomes erect, 3-5 mm diam., with pale, slightly reddish tan, imbricate scales at very bases. Fronds 5-20 X 0.5-1.4 em, clustered at rhizome apexes, spreading. Stipes 1-6 em long, mostly 1/15-1/3 frond length, dark brown, blending into blades, scaly at very bases, very hairy with black (often appearing red and translucent on living plants), needlelike hairs. Blades broadly linear, wider in middle, tapering at tips and bases, narrowing gradu-ally to stipes, subcoriaceous, margins entire, very hairy, hairs abundant, stiff, black, needle-shaped, mostly 1-3 mm long. Sori near costae, round, regular single rows on both sides of midrib, often both rows expanding to touch each other over midrib, paraphyses plentiful and consisting of sharp-tipped hairs as on blades.

Common to widespread in mesic to wet forests, usually on low, mossy branches, occasionally on mossy rocks, 800-1,750 m, all major islands. Also found in Fiji and Samoa, and erroneously reported from the Philippines and Queensland, Australia.

Grammitis hookeri may be distinguished from G. baldwinii and G. forbesiana by its very abundant hairs and its sori in lines close to the midrib.