English: King fern; Giant fern; Elephant fern; Oriental vessel fern;
Madagascar tree fern; Mule's Foot fern.
Synonym: Clementea; Macroglossum; Protangiopteris; Protomarattia; Psilodochea.
Name: from Greek aggeion, a vessel, and pteris, a fern.
Clades:
Marattiaceae;
Marattiales;
Polypodianae;
Pteridophyta;
Plants.
Region: Australasia, Southeast Asia, Oceania; Region: paleotropics,
Madagascar to South Pacific islands; introduced in Hawaii, Jamaica, Central America, invasive weed in lower elevation drainages.
Habitat: rainforest.
Use: for perfume; Hawaiian garlands.
BotanyFern; evergreen; huge.
Root: thick.
Stem: large, erect, woody rhizome with a wide base.
Leaves: deltoid; pinnate, with spreading leaflets; huge, 5 to 8 metres long.
Spores: explosively dispersed.
Chromosome number: 2n=80.
BotanyFern: very large; self-supporting; evergreen; perennial.
Stem: trunk-like rhizome, massive, measuring up to 1 m in diameter; older portions lie on the ground, newer growth may rise vertically up to 1.2 m high.
Leaves: very large, up to 9 m long, 2.5 m wide; glossy green; emerge from the tip of the rhizome; fleshy green petiole, 2 m long; not woody; supported by the hydraulic pressure; stipules flat, rounded, leathery, ear-shaped , known as auricles, up to 15 cm diameter; bipinnate, 9 to 12 pairs of pinnae; pinnae to 150 cm long and 45 cm wide; arching; pinnules 30 to 40 pairs, 13 by 2 cm; rachis and rachillae are pulvinate, swollen at the base.
Sporangia: borne on the underside of the pinnules, very close to the margin, in clusters of 5 to 8 opposite pairs.
TaxonomyAngiopteris evecta was originally described as Polypodium evectum. It was moved to the genus Angiopteris. It is the type species of the genus Angiopteris.