Name honors Robert Warner Hobdy (1942-), state forester on Maui, student of the Hawaiian flora, and discoverer of many new Hawaiian plant species.

Plants small, clustered, terrestrial. Rhizomes erect, up to 1.5 em long, covered with bases of old stipes. Fronds 10-35 x 0.5-2 cm. Stipes clustered, up to 20 at tip of rhizomes, usually 1/10-1/5 blade length, usually deeply grooved, dark reddish brown, shiny, gla-brous except at extreme bases, scales at bases linear-deltate, black, inconspicuous. Blades 1-pinnate, linear, 2-6 proliferations per frond on distall 1/2 of rachises, tips not terminated by proliferations, dark green, coriaceous, tips acute. Pinnae oblong, subdimidiate, 15-45 pinna pairs, 4-14 x 4-6 mm, leathery, tips rounded, almost truncate, distal-facing bases often with small auri-cles, distal margins shallowly crenate with 3-5 marginal projections. Veins conspicuous, 2-5(-6) vein endings on distal margins of pinnae, I or 2 veins on or below mid vein nearly parallel to costae. Sori 0-2 on lower side, up to 5 on upper side of mid vein. Indusia conspicuous, thick.

Uncommon and local in very wet forests, on wet banks, near the bases of waterfalls in deep shade, and occasionally in forest understory and montane mesic forests, I ,200-1 ,850 m, Kaua'i, Moloka'i, Maui, and Hawai'i. Locally common in The Nature Conservancy Waikamoi Preserve on East Maui.

Asplenium hobdyi has been confused with A. normale but is much less common and usually grows in darker, wetter places.

Asplenium hobdyi, a 1-pinnate fern, is a plant of dark, wet places and may be dif-ferentiated from A. normale by the pres-ence of several proliferations on the distal rachises but not at the frond tips. It has fewer teeth (3-5) on the upper margins of the pinnae. It is a smaller plant with smaller pinnae having fewer veins and sori.