Stiff Shoestring Fern

elongata: long, lengthened: referring to the long linear fronds.

Rhizome creeping, branched; rhizome scales very dark brown, up to 6 mm long, lanceolate, clathrate, hairpointed. Fronds numerous, spaced at 5-15 mm intervals, thinly coracious. Lamina 20-80 × 0.5-1 cm, narrowed into a pale green to strawcoloured wiry stipe when dried, apex rounded, mucronate, with a hydathode at the tip. Midrib and veins obscure. Sori marginal in a groove formed by two narrow indusialike flanges of the lamina rim. Paraphyses articulated, simple, apical cell turbinate.

Comoro Isl., Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Pemba, Seychelles, Tanzania, Zimbabwe.

Haplopteris elongata, commonly known as the tape fern, is a species of epiphytic fern. In eastern Australia, it grows in rainforests north from the Richmond River in the south, to tropical Queensland in the north.