Oral Paper

         Pteridology

The ferns and lycophytes of Honey Island, Paraná, Brazil

Presenting Author
Fernando Matos
Description
Honey Island is located at the entrance of Paranaguá Bay, 2,800 meters offshore from Pontal do Sul, Paraná, Brazil. With an area of about 3,000 hectares and elevations ranging from sea level to 150 meters, this subtropical island harbors a great diversity of plants, including 131 pteridophytes. An earlier publication, from 2005, reported 109 species, including 103 ferns and six lycophytes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I started visiting that island with the goal of photographing as many species as I could find. From May 2021 to March 2023, I went on 32 field trips and took more than 10,000 photographs of landscapes, animals, and plants. So far, I have found 118 species of pteridophytes, including 96 species from that previous list and 22 new records. My goal now is to find the remaining 13 species from that list, and once they are all photographed, I would like to produce a nice book about them. In this field guide, each species would have two facing pages, one with text and the other with photos. The text would be bilingual (English and Portuguese) and the photographs would be standardized to show features of the stems, leaves, and sori. An identification key for all the species will also be provided. The target audience for this book would be local residents, visitors (national and foreign), students (from elementary to university level), botanists (amateurs and professionals), and other researchers alike. My idea is to educate people about ferns and lycophytes based on my field observations and my knowledge acquired during the past 20 years working as a pteridologist. In this Oral Paper, I will give a preview of this book.