Common names: ka 'ape 'ape, 'ahina kuahiwi (mountain kuahiwi) (P. & E.)

Indigenous

Specific name possibly derived from the palm genus Caryota, the fishtail palms, and the Latin diminutive suffix -idium, alluding to the small fishtail palm appearance of the plants.

Rhizomes decumbent, covered with persistent stipe bases. Fronds erect to spreading, 25-50 cm long. Stipes grooved, straw-colored, 1/3-1/2 frond length, scales at base sparse, dark, paler, distally sparser and scat-tered. Blades 1-pinnate, oblong, chartaceous, terminal pinnae larger, wider, deeply cleft to lobed; rachises fibrillose. Pinnae 3-6(-7) pinna pairs, ovate-lanceolate to falcate, pale green abaxially, light to medium green ad-axially, adaxial surface slightly glossy to dull (especially when dried), hastate, bases biauriculate with upper auricles usually more prominent, margins finely serrate to dentate, apexes acuminate, opposite at base, alternate distally, short-stalked. Veins inconspicuous, reticulate, forming areoles with included veins. Sori plentiful on included veins in areoles. Indusia round, peltate.

Found in summer-dry to mesic forests to montane wet forests and mesic shrublands, 300-2,100 m, all major islands. On O'ahu it often grows together with Cyrtomium falcatum. Its native range includes the Himalayas, southern India, Japan, southern China, and Taiwan.

Cyrtomium caryotideum is variable in size but differs from C. falcatum by always having obscure veins, a smaller number of pinna pairs (3-7), and pinnae with auricles and serrate margins. The living plants are a duller and lighter green than C. falcatum and not as glossy, or not at all glossy.