Christella chaseana (Schelpe) Holtt.

chaseana: named for Norman C. Chase (1888 - 1970), one of our foremost collectors of Zimbabwean plants, particularly of ferns.

Rhizome creeping, up to 20 mm in diameter; rhizome scales up to 11 mm long, brown, lanceolate, thinly pilose, entire. Fronds closely spaced, erect or slightly arching, not proliferous, herbaceous. Stipe up to 63 cm long, pale brown, hairless with dark brown scales near the base. Lamina up to 80 × 30 cm, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate in outline, deeply 2-pinnatifid, apex tapering to a point with a deeply pinnatifid terminal segment, basal 3-5 pairs of pinnae reduced and deflexed. Pinnae narrowly oblong, ultimate lobes narrowly oblong, slightly falcate, apex rounded, basal acroscopic lobe enlarged and sometimes overlapping the rhachis; both surfaces hairy, more so along the veins, costa and costules; veins 1 pair meeting at the sinus. Rhachis strawcoloured, pilose. Sori round, up to 16 per lobe; indusia small,subcircular to kidney-shaped with long white hairs.

Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.