Golden leather fern (Acrostichum aureum)

Golden leather fern (Acrostichum aureum) is a species of plant in the Pteridaceae, an upright shrub, grows in large clumps and forms round plots, 2 meters high, stems short and stocky, fibrous, covered with large scales and brownish or pale in color with a black center line.

A. aureum has compound, pinnate, leather-like leaves and is up to 3 meters long. The minor leaves are narrow oval to elliptical, blunt or rounded at the base, blunt at the tip, mucronate, 24-30 pairs, irregularly seated and sometimes loose, dark green, erect or curved.

Several pairs (5 pairs or more) of minor leaves at the tip are often fertile and rusty or brownish in color, with the underside covered by many large sporangia. Sterile leaves sit on the bottom, are longer, have blunt or rounded tips and a short, small tip protrusion.

This species grows in tropical and subtropical areas, damp lowlands, coastal areas, open mudflats, brackish swamps, mangrove forests, tidal streams and grows well in full sun.

Plants contain beta-sitosterol, alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolics, catechins, saponins, tannins, glycosides, terpenoids, steroids, amygdalin, arbutin, formic acid, oxalic acid, five phytosterols (stigmasterol, y-sitosterol, campesterol, cycloartanol, and 24- methylene cycloartanol), 2 sesquiterpenes ((2R,3S)-sulfated pterosin C, (2S,3S)-sulfated pterosin C), as well as 2 derivatives ((2S,3S)-pterosin C and (2R)-pterosin P).

Often used to treat poultices for wounds and boils, snake bites, syphilis ulcers, sore throats, chest pain, elephantiasis, constipation, diabetes, cloudy urine in women, fever reducers, worm medicine, stops bleeding and is an emollient.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Polypodiopsida
Subclass: Polypodiidae
Order: Polypodiales
Suborder: Pteridineae
Family: Pteridaceae
Subfamily: Ceratopteridoideae
Genus: Acrostichum
Species: Acrostichum aureum

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