Cluster Fern

multifida: with many divisions, referring to the finely divided lamina.

Rhizome short, creeping, up to 4 mm in diameter; rhizome scales brown with pale margins, awl-shaped, margin (sub)entire, up to 3.5 mm long. Fronds tufted, erect, rigid, herbaceous to coriaceous. Stipe dark brown to almost black, up to 42 cm long, shallowly grooved, glabrous but with brown narrow scales at the extreme base. Lamina 5-32 cm × 2.5-28 cm, ovate-deltate in outline, 3-pinnate to 5-pinnatifid; lowest pinnae together almost as long as the lamina, basiscopically developed. Pinnules triangular-oblong to deltate-lanceolate in outline, cut to the midrib into oblong-ovate, rounded, crenate lobes, venation obscure, free, both surfaces subglabrous. Rhachis and secondary rhachises castaneous to black, hairless. Sori small, round, marginal, discrete; indusium small, semicircular, pale, erose to lacerate, membranous.

Angola, Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, St. Helena, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.