Cyathea amintae is a species of tree fern

Cyatheales

The order Cyatheales is a taxonomic division of the fern subclass, Cyatheatae, which includes the tree ferns. No clear morphological features characterize all of the Cyatheales, but DNA sequence data indicates that the order is monophyletic. Some species in the Cyatheales have tree-like growth...

 native to Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, where it grows in shaded areas and cloud forest

Cloud forest

A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and...

 at an altitude of 1000-1200 m. The erect trunk may be 1.3 m tall and approximately 5 cm in diameter. Fronds are pinnate

Pinnate

Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...

 and up to 1.6 m long. The rachis

Rachis

Rachis is a biological term for a main axis or "shaft".-In zoology:In vertebrates a rachis can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this case the rachis usually form the supporting axis of the body and is then called the spine or vertebral column...

 is often purplish brown and covered with scale

Scale (zoology)

In most biological nomenclature, a scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of an animal's skin to provide protection. In lepidopteran species, scales are plates on the surface of the insect wing, and provide coloration...

s, usually on the underside. The scales range in colour from golden brown to bicoloured (pale with darker margins). Sori

Sorus

A sorus is a cluster of sporangia .In fungi and lichens, the sorus is surrounded by an external layer. In some red algae it may take the form of a depression into the thallus....

 occur along each side of the pinnule midvein and indusia are cup-like.

In the wild, C. amintae is known to hybridise with Cyathea bryophila

Cyathea bryophila

Cyathea bryophila is a species of tree fern native to Puerto Rico, where it grows in the understory in wet montane and mossy forest at an altitude of 750-1200 m. The trunk is erect, up to 7 m tall and about 10 cm in diameter. Fronds are pinnate or bipinnate and grow to 2 m in length. The underside...

and Cyathea portoricensis. With C. bryophila, it forms the fertile hybrid Cyathea × dryopteroides

Cyathea × dryopteroides

Cyathea × dryopteroides is a tree fern native to Puerto Rico, where it grows at an altitude of 1000-1200 m. It is now known to be of hybrid origin between Cyathea amintae and Cyathea bryophila.-References:...

.

The specific epithet

Epithet

An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...

 amintae refers to Aminta Kitfield Conant.

C. amintae is commonly known as Alsophila amintae due to nomenclatural

Botanical nomenclature

Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this process. The starting point for modern botanical...

problems.