Dryopteris melanocarpa (Dryopteridaceae), a new record of a fern species among the Korean flora of Jejudo Island

Dryopteris melanocarpa Hayata is an unrecorded perennial monilophyte species in Korea that belongs to the genus Dryopteris of Dryopteridaceae. It was initially found to grow wild in a cave on Daerok Mountain, Jejudo Island and has been known to grow spontaneously only in Taiwan and Japan thus far. This species is morphologically very similar to D. sparsa (D. Don) Kuntze and D. subexaltata (Christ) C. Chr. However, D. melanocarpa is distinguished from those related taxa in that the stipe scale shape is broadly lanceolate and its lamina is triangularly lanceolate and herbaceous. In this study, in order to identify the D. melanocarpa, which was found on Jejudo Island, morphological and molecular analyses were conducted.