Alsophila

capensis: first collected in the Cape by C. Thunberg, a Swedish botanist

Tree fern. Caudex up to 4.5 m × 20-25 cm, crowned with a 'nest of moss-like' aphlebia (a pair of finely divided and much reduced pinnae at the base of the stipe). Fronds herbaceous. Stem without spines. Stipe up to 50 cm long, light brown, set with dark brown basal scales; scales 10 mm long, dark, glossy, lanceolate, margin pale, irregularly cut, apex bristle like. Lamina up to 2m × 0.8m, deeply 3-pinnatifid, elliptic in outline. Ultimate lobes narrowly oblong-falcate, margins toothed, apex acute, lower surface with few pale, thin bullate scales set along the costules. Sori round, one per lobe, set adjacent to the costule, c. 1 mm diameter; indusium asymmetric, variable, scale like, attached on one side of the sorus, often reduced or even absent.

Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zimbabwe