Christella gueinziana (Mett.) Holtt.

gueinziana: named after Wilhelm Gueinzius (1814-1874), German apothecary and naturalist in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Rhizome erect, c. 20 mm in diameter; rhizome scales up to 4 mm long, brown, broadly lanceolate, entire. Fronds tufted, arching, not proliferous, herbaceous to subcoriaceous. Stipe up to 50 cm long, pale brown, thinly set with minute white hairs and with brown scales near the base. Lamina up to 1.2 × 0.45 m but average half this size, ovate-lanceolate in outline, 2-pinnatifid, basal pinnae gradually reduced and deflexed but not forming a series of much-reduced pinnae down the stipe. Pinnae narrowly oblong, attenuate, pinnatifid, ultimate lobes narrowly oblong, slightly falcate, apex acute to sharply rounded; both surfaces thinly set with hairs, more so along the costae and costules; veins 1 pair meeting in the sinus between the lobes. Rhachis pale brown, thinly pilose. Sori round, up to 16 per lobe; indusia subcircular to kidney-shaped with slender white hairs.

Angola, Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.