Cheilanthes takeuchii W. H. Wagner

Endemic

Name honors Wayne N. Takeuchi (1952-), Hawaiian botanist who discovered this fern in 1988, now working in Papua New Guinea.

Plants small, clustered. Rhizomes compact, bearing a cluster of 5-25 stipe bases. Fronds 10-30 cm long. Stipes round, about 1 mm in diam., not or minimally ridged, dark maroon to black, glabrous except at very base. Blades 1-pinnate-pinnatisect to 2-pinnate-pinnati-sect, elliptic-triangular to elliptic, pale green, thick, chartaceous; rachises wiry, dark maroon to black; rachises between 2 lower sets of pinnae unwinged and almost twice as long as that between the second and third pairs. Pinnae 2-3 pairs before blade tips become pinnatifid, sessile to short-stalked, opposite to subopposite. Pinnules and ultimate segments ovate to linear, 2-5 mm wide, slightly tapering to obtuse tips. Coenosori usually extending to segment tips.

Found only on Diamond Head crater on O'ahu on both inner and outer dry slopes, 100-120 m. During dry summers the fronds dry and curl up, and with winter rains the plants become green and vigorous.

Restricted to Diamond Head on O'ahu, Doryopteris takeuchii resembles and is closely related to D. decora, but differs in having a longer rachis length between the first and second pinna pairs, and rachises that are usually entirely unwinged between the first and second pinna pairs, often even between the second and third pinna pairs.