Thelypteris chaseana Schelpe

Thelypteridaceae, Bernard Verdcourt. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 2006

Type

Type: Namibia, Otjiwarongo District, Schelpe 4791 (BOL, holo.; BM!, iso.)

Rhizomes

Rhizome creeping, with brown lanceolate acuminate entire slightly pilose scales up to 11 mm long

Leaves

Fronds spaced up to 1 cm apart, 0.35–1.5 m tall

Stipes

Stipe pale brown 30–63 cm long, glabrous

Leaf lamina

Lamina narrowly elliptic to lanceolate in outline, deeply bipinnatifid, 30–70 cm long, 15–40 cm wide, acuminate with a deeply pinnatifid terminal segment; sometimes up to 3 pairs of basal pinnae reduced and deflexed; middle pinnae narrowly oblong, 8–20 cm long, 1.8–2.3 cm wide, acuminate, pinnatifid into narrowly oblong lobes 5–10 mm long, 2–3.5 mm wide, sometimes falcate, obtuse; veins entirely free or contiguous, meeting in the sinus membrane, occasionally ± anastomosing

Indusium

Indusia conspicuous, usually with dense long white hairs.

Ecology

Swampy streamsides with Eulophia, Thelypteris confluens etc. very often in riverine forest, mist forest with Macaranga, Albizia, Newtonia etc., also in essentially drier areas, steep rocky slopes with Terminalia, Combretum, Acacia etc., streamsides in Brachystegia–Uapaca woodland, bogs in rough bushy grassland and in cultivations by streams; 800–1900 m

Note

Some of the information for this species is taken from sheets determined by Schelpe or Holttum but have field notes which do not describe the rhizome or have inconsistencies e.g. creeping but fronds tufted. Richards 7383 (Tanzania, Ufipa District, Sumbawanga, Kaka R.,) has been determined by Alston as Thelypteris pseudogueintziana (Bonap.) Alston, but I do not see how it differs from the above species. If they prove to be the same, then Bonaparte’s name is much the older.

Distribution

Flora districts: U2 K3 K 4?, K7 T2 T4 T7 T8 Range: Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia