Asplenium rhizophyllum one collection on sandstone in the Shawnee Hills of Illinois. A triploid hybrid between walking fern and Tutwiler's spleenwort was accidentally produced in culture. A similar plant collected from limestone in Shepherdstown, West Virginia could have originated from the same parents, from an unreduced (diploid) gametophyte of Scott's spleenwort crossed with walking fern, or from an unreduced walking fern gametophyte crossed with ebony spleenwort. In 1813, Henry Muhlenberg listed lobed spleenwort as "Asplenium rhizophyllum" var. "pinnatifidum", although he did not provide a description distinguishing the variety from the typical species. It was described as the species "A. pinnatifidum" by Thomas
Type (biology) species of the section ... After studying the diverse forms, I came to consider them as belonging to the one and the same specific type. In botanical nomenclature, a "type" ("typus", "nomenclatural type"), "is that element to which the name of a taxon is permanently attached." (article 7.1) In botany a type is either a specimen or an illustration. A specimen is a real plant (or one or more parts of a plant or a lot of small plants), dead and kept safe, "curated", in a herbarium (or the equivalent for fungi). Examples of where an illustration may serve as