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Pellaea glabella
Also called Dwarf Cliffbrake, Simple Cliffbrake
Pellaea glabella is a fern with the common name smooth cliffbrake. It was once regarded as a reduced form or variety of Pellaea atropurpurea. P. glabella is known to exist in two cryptic species, one diploid and one tetraploid. The diploid reproduces sexually, while the tetraploid is normally apogamous. It is now known that the tetraploid form of the species is one of the parents of the original hybrid P. × atropurpurea that became the apogamous species.
P. glabella ranges widely in the United States and much of Canada, excluding the northernmost regions and Alaska. P. glabella is epipetric, normally growing on well-weathered limestone, usually in cracks with little or no soil. It can also be found on sandstone and basalt, probably in places where calcium is locally concentrated. It favors more exposed sites than P. atropurpurea.
Coffee cliffbrake · Purple cliffbrake · Sierra cliffbrake · Brewer's cliffbrake · Bridges' cliffbrake · Creeping Sickle Fern · Pellaea calomelanos · Sickle Fern · Birdfoot cliffbrake · Dwarf Sickle Fern · Heart Fern · Button Fern
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pellaea glabella by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
