Asplenium sp. (Aspleniaceae) (Finland, Lohja, Jantoniemi, 1987). – Image: Harri Harmaja (scanned from dried specimen). – This curious small plant (magnified in the image) with a more or less deltoid leaf lamina was found in the crevices of an eutrophic rock outcrop. Accompanying species include A. septentrionale, A. trichomanes, Thymus serpyllum, and Viola rupestris ssp. rupestris. The petiole and leaf blade are rather densely glandular. I have found more or less similar (somewhat more lobed) plants also in another place in Lohja, and in a third locality in Kisko. In the latter two localities the bedrock was of limestone, and four other taxa of Asplenium were present: A. ×alternifolium (A. septentrionale × trichomanes), A. ruta-muraria, A. septentrionale and A. trichomanes. The plants were sterile in all cases. The present plant may represent (aberrant?) juvenile stages of A. ×alternifolium which – typical and sporangia-bearing – was present in two localities.
Created August 6, 2004.