Endemic

Name honors Warren H. Wagner Jr. (1920-2000), University of Michigan professor who studied the Hawaiian ferns for over fifty years and contributed enormously to the knowledge of these plants.

Plants mediumsized, terrestrial. Rhizomes short, decumbent. Fronds erect, 54-95 cm long. Stipes pink to red, naked except at extreme bases, where they are covered with mats of scales resembling wet tissue paper; scales linear-ovate, long-triangular, thin, tan, concolorous, often falling off early (on dried specimens often glabrous), glan-dular. Blades 1-pinnate-pinnatifid, never 2-pinnate, deltate, 26-39 cm long, dark green on upper surfaces, light beneath. Pinnae with sinuses cut only 3/4-7/8 distance to costae, and many translucent, tan, globular glands on abaxial surface, especially over veins and costae (most easily seen on living plants). Ultimate segments 27-35 pairs per pinna, rectangular, basiscopic basal segments not enlarged or overlapping rachises, 0.6-0.9 cm long, tips obtuse. Veins obscured by thick abaxial epidermis, except at distal liS, ending in hydathodes, not touching margins. Sori 1/2-2/3 length of segments. Indusia with many glands.

Rare, currently known only from steep, wet, dark walls of Kauaikanana and Mohihi Streams and along the Wainiha pali below the Alaka 'i plateau, about 1,100-1,200 m, in Koke'e, Kaua'i. A morphologic continuum between S. wagneriana and S. souleyetiana exists in the same area.

Sadleria wagneriana may be distinguished by stipe scales that resemble those of S. souleyetiana, but are much smaller; thickened undersurfaces obscuring the veins, as in S. cyatheoides; and the presence of glands.