Elaphoglossum aubertii (Desv.) Moore

aubertii: this fern was first collected on Réunion by a French naturalist called Aubert du Petit-Thouars (1758-1831)

Rhizome short creeping to suberect, 3-8 mm in diameter; rhizome scales brown, lanceolate, entire, pointed. Fronds tufted, thinly herbaceous, erect or arching, simple, strongly dimorphous. Sterile fronds: stipe up to 14 cm long, straminous to pale brown, with persistent twisted squarose scales; lamina 20-40 × 1.5-2.5 cm, linear or very narrowly elliptic in outline, apex tapering to a point, base gradually tapering and then broadly wedge-shaped to the stipe, margins entire or slightly wavy with sparse brown scales, margins also with a continuous row of small dot-like hydathodes situated c. 1mm from the margin; midrib with scales similar to those of the stipe. Fertile fronds: stipe mostly double but up to five times as long as the stipes of the sterile fronds; lamina 6-10 × 1.7-2mm, resembling a spearhead, apex rounded to pointed, base square or truncate, entirely covered by sporangia on the underside.

This species is Afro-Malagasy in distribution, being at home in the higher African mountains of tropical and southern subtropical Africa, as well as in Malagasy and on the Comoro and Mascarene islands.