Flora Zambesiaca

Taxon Detail

FZ volume:0 part:0 (1970) Adiantaceae by E. A. C. L. E. Schelpe

(Search other Kew databases for: Cheilanthes similis)

Cheilanthes similis Ballard

in Kew Bull. 12: 47 (1957). Type: Zambia, Milne-Redhead 4351 (BM, isotype; K, holotype).

Synonyms:

Cheilanthes heterophylla

sensu Tardieu in Mém. Inst. Fr. Afr. Noire, 28: 89, t. 14 fig. 1–2 (1953).

Distribution:

Zambia

N: Luapula Distr., Mbereshi, 16.i.1960, Richards 12385 (BOL; K; SRGH).

W: Mwinilunga Distr., Luakera Falls, 25.i.1938, Milne-Redhead 4351 (BM; K).

Range:

Congo; 

Habitat:

Around rock in open Brachystegia woodlands 1000–1500 m.

Description:

Rhizome c. 8 mm. in diam., short, creeping, with tufted fronds and light-brown very narrowly linear entire concolorous rhizome-scales up to 10 x 1 mm. Fronds dimorphous, thinly coriaceous, the fertile more dissected and with longer stipes than in the sterile fronds. Stipe castaneous, thinly pubescent with pale hairs 1–2 mm. long, up to 1.7 cm. in sterile fronds and 12–22 cm. in fertile fronds. Sterile lamina up to 6.5 x 5.7 cm., triangular in outline, deeply pinnatifid above becoming pinnate at the base, the lowest pinnae with basiscopically developed lobes; pinna lobes oblong, obtuse to acute, entire to crenate, thinly pilose on both surfaces with pale flexuous hairs; venation obscure. Fertile lamina up to 10.7 x 7.6 cm., triangular in outline, pinnate above to pinnatifid below, the lowest pinnae with basiscopically developed entire to sinuate lobes; middle pinnae pinnatifid into oblong to triangular obtuse entire lobes thinly pilose on both surfaces with pale flexuous hairs. Sori small, submarginal, discrete, developing into a soral line later; indusium membranous, hyaline, mostly continuous, longly ciliate.