Serpocaulon loriceum(L.) A.R.Sm.

clambering polypody

WFO wfo-0001279601 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Serpocaulon loriceum, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. a Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2016-03-18 / obs. 3836123
Serpocaulon loriceum, photographed by Elliot Greiner
fig. b Elliot Greiner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 181584895
Serpocaulon loriceum, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. c Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 3836122

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Serpocaulon loriceum is native: Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. ColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorHaitiJamaicaPuerto RicoVenezuela Leeward Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Serpocaulon loriceum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Colombia CLM SOUTHERN AMERICA
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
Haiti HAI
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Puerto Rico PUE
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 15 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Goniophlebium arcuatum Fée
  • Goniophlebium loriceum J.Sm.
  • Goniophlebium punctulatum T.Moore
  • Goniophlebium ramosum Fée
  • Marginaria falcata Fée
  • Marginaria loricea C.Presl
  • Polypodium chartaceum Baker
  • Polypodium elegans Cav. ex Sw.
  • Polypodium karwinskianum E.J.Lowe
  • Polypodium lineare Houtt.
  • Polypodium loriceum L.
  • Polypodium loriceum f. duplisora Domin
  • Polypodium loriceum var. heterolepis Sodiro
  • Polypodium ramosum Burm.f.
  • Polypodium ramosum Lodd.; Link

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol POLO5. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.