Graceful Necklace Fern

ensis: sword, folia: leaves; with swordlike leaves, referring to the long and tapering pinnae.

Rhizome creeping, c. 1.5-3 mm in diameter; rhizome scales dark brown, lanceolate, with a long drawn out point, up to 2.5 mm long, margins entire. Fronds spaced 1-3 cm apart, erect, herbaceous, glabrous. Stipe brown, shiny, up to 36 cm long, glabrous except for a few scales near the base, grooved. Lamina up to 45 × 22 cm, imparipinnate, roughly oblonceolate in outline; fresh smelling lightly of almonds when crushed. Pinnae 7.5-20 × 0.5-2 cm, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, shortly petiolate, base unequally cuneate, apex shortly tapering to slightly rounded, margin entire to shallowly lobed, veins forming 1-2 rows of areoles along each side of the costa, venation anastomosing. Sori linear, continuous along the fertile pinnae; indusium linear, semitransparent, opening outwards.

Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pemba, Réunion, Seychelles, South africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and widely throughout southern Asia and the East Indies.