Dryopteris manniana (Hook.) C. Chr.

manniana: named after Gustav Mann, German botanist.

Rhizome erect to suberect, up to 20 mm in diameter; rhizome scales brown, up to 14 mm long, narrowly lanceolate in outline, margin entire with short marginal outgrowths. Fronds tufted, arching, herbaceous, with proliferating buds on the rhachis near the apex of the frond. Stipe up to 30 cm long, straw-coloured, with scales similar to rhizome at the base. Lamina up to 39 × 26 cm, ovate to ovate-oblong in outline, 2-pinnatifid at the apex to 3-pinnatifid at the base, with a pinnatifid to lobed terminal segment and basal pair of pinnae not reduced and basiscopically developed. Ultimate lobes oblong, glabrous on both surfaces, margins crenate to serrate. Rhachis set with a few hairlike scales at the axils of the pinnae. Sori small, round, c. 1 mm in diameter, up to 18 per lobe, exindusiate.

Rare

Bioko, Burundi, Cameroon, Coté d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, also Madagascar.