Cheilanthes lidgatei (as C. lidgatii) Baker; Schizostege lydgatei (Baker) Hillebr.

Endemic Name honors John Mortimer Lydgate (1854-1922), who as a student botanized on several islands with William Hillebrand and later sent specimens to Hillebrand and to C. N. Forbes at Bishop Museum. (He changed the spelling of his name to Lidgate while a student at O'ahu College, now Punahou.

Plants medium-sized, terrestrial. Rhizomes creeping, decumbent. Fronds 30-95 x 12-45 cm. Stipes straw-colored, scales at bases dark brown, shiny, deciduous, and leaving tubercles distally. Blades 1-pinnate to 2-pinnate-pinnatifid, oblong-triangular to broadly ovate-triangular, dark gray green, thick, brittle, tips similar to lateral pinnae. Pinnae 4-6 (-10) pairs, subopposite, short-stalked to adnate, lanceolate, basal pinnae entire, pinnatisect to 1-pinnate-pinnatisect, with or without 1-3 long basal lobes that sometimes become long pinnatifid pinnules. Ultimate segment margins entire to shallowly lobed or dentate. Veins free, 0-to 1-forked, ending in swollen tips, or a few to several uniting along the margin to form commissural veins. Sori marginal, either divided into many short, separate sori served by 1 or 2 vein tips, as short as 5 mm, or forming a coenosorus more than 15 mm long, served by more veins. False indusia are marginal folds, as long or short as sori, broad, entire, thick, dull white to dark tan.

Rare, found on steep, shaded banks along streams and alongside waterfalls in wet forests, 530-1,100 m, in the Ko'olau Mountains of O'ahu and on West Maui. Collected once on Moloka'i in 1912.

Pteris lidgatei has always been rare and has not been seen in recent years in some of its previously known locations, although living plants are still being found in new places on O'ahu and Maui. The odd pattern of the sori caused Hillebrand to place this fern in the new genus Schizostege, but careful study has shown it to be a Pteris. The plant can resemble Ctenitis latifrons or a young Cibotium when seen on steep banks of streams.

Pteris lidgatei, a very rare fern, may be recognized by its usually interrupted marginal sori, dark green color, and rough and brittle, thick texture. Its frond dissection varies from 1-pinnate to 2-pinnate-pinnatifid, with the basal pinnae entire to pinnatisect to 1-pinnate-pinnatisect, with or without 1-3 long basal lobes that some-times become long and pinnatifid.