Asplenium platyneuron plant. Similar buds have also been reported from the single-sorus spleenwort, "Asplenium monanthes". The species most similar to "Asplenium platyneuron" is the black-stemmed spleenwort, "A. resiliens". However, this stipe of this species is darker, and the pinnae are opposite, rather than alternate, along the rachis. Neither black-stemmed spleenwort nor the other pinnate American spleenworts have dimorphic fertile and sterile fronds. It might be confused with a young Christmas fern, "Polystichum acrostichoides", but that species is generally much larger and has a green, scaly stipe and rachis. It is very similar to Boydston's spleenwort, "Asplenium × boydstoniae", a backcross with Tutwiler's
Plant cell quite elongated, and may divide transversely to give a septate appearance. The role of this cell type is to support the plant in axes still growing in length, and to confer flexibility and tensile strength on tissues. The primary wall lacks lignin that would make it tough and rigid, so this cell type provides what could be called plastic support – support that can hold a young stem or petiole into the air, but in cells that can be stretched as the cells around them elongate. Stretchable support (without elastic snap-back) is a good way to describe what collenchyma does.