Myriopteris aurea
species of plant
Myriopteris aurea, the golden lip fern or Bonaire lip fern, is a medium-sized fern native to the Americas, a member of the family Pteridaceae. Unlike many members of its genus, which are relatively lacy, its leaf is only dissected into lobed leaflets (pinnae), which are hairy both above and below. One of the cheilanthoid lip ferns, it was classified in the genus Cheilanthes as Cheilanthes bonariensis until 2013, when the genus Myriopteris was again recognized as separate from Cheilanthes. It typically grows on dry, rocky slopes, and ranges from the southwestern United States through Mexico, where it is common and widespread, south and east through Central and South America as far as Chile and Argentina. The common names refer to the color of the hairs on the upper surface of the leaves, and to early collections around Buenos Aires, Latinized as "Bonaire".
Description
Leaf bases are closely spaced along the horizontal rhizome, which is variously described as being 3 millimeters (0.1 in) or 4 to 8 millimeters (0.2 to 0.3 in) in diameter. The rhizome bears scales, which are linear to lanceolate, with entire (untoothed) or subentire (very slightly toothed) margins. They are bi-colored, with a shiny central stripe red-brown or shiny chestnut-brown to black in color and narrow light-brown margins, and measure 3 millimeters (0.1 in) long. They are slightly twisted and strongly pressed against the rhizome.
The fronds spring up in clusters; unlike many ferns, they do not unfold as fiddleheads (noncircinate vernation).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Myriopteris aurea” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Myriopteris, aurea and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17196448. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Myriopteris aurea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.