About Crepidomanes intricatum (Farrar) Ebihara & Weakley
Crepidomanes intricatum, with the synonym Trichomanes intricatum, is commonly called the weft fern. The genus Crepidomanes is accepted in the 2016 Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification (PPG I), but it is not recognized by some other sources. As of October 2019, Plants of the World Online merged this genus into a broadly defined genus Trichomanes, and treats this species as Trichomanes intricatum. This is an unusual filmy fern that grows in rock shelters and crevices in the eastern United States. Its range extends south to Georgia and north to New England. This species is known only from its filamentous gametophytes, and completely lacks the sporophyte generation. It is a rare plant that is protected in several US states. Recent research has found a relationship between this species and an Asian filmy fern species, Crepidomanes schmidianum. Both species share the same chloroplast genome, though the exact relationship between the two is still uncertain. In 2011, Atsushi Ebihara and Alan S. Weakley reclassified Trichomanes intricatum as Crepidomanes intricatum, based on chloroplast molecular sequence data.
