I really need to take some time from hiking and reading scientific literature to learn how to take better pictures. Anyway, here is one of my better compositions.
Pe’ahi (Microsorum spectrum) is a cute little fern with neat deltate fronds and distinct venation. It doesn’t look like your average fern. Here on O’ahu it is very rare. It is only known from a few scattered locations.
Dan Palmer’s excellent Hawai’i’s Fern and Fern Allies mentions that Pe’ahi can be terrestrial, epiphytic or epipetric, but the few colonies that I’ve seen on my hikes have always been terrestrial with creeping rhizomes. Perhaps in other heretoforth undiscovered locations on O’ahu it grows differently, we just have to find them. Happy searching!
