Asplenium protensum Schrad. var. pseudohorridum Hieron.

Rhizome up to 5 mm diameter, erect or sometimes shortly creeping; rhizome scales dark brown with pale lacerate margings, narrowly ovate-triangular in outline, up to 2 mm long. Fronds tufted, arching, herbaceous, proliferous towards the apex. Stipe 4-18 cm long; stipe and rhachis are thinly pubescent and covered with few ovate brown scales. Lamina 15-95 × 3-12 cm, narrowly lanceolate in outline, 2-pinnatifid, lower pinnae reduced, apical pinnae linear and lobed. Pinnae in 24-56 pairs, 2-7 x 0.8-1.7 cm, lanceolate in outline, incised 2/3 of the way to the midrib, base unequal, acroscopic basal lobe well developed, thinly pubescent above and below; lobes oblique, truncate and bifid. Sori 10-22, linear, 2-6.5 mm long, set at about 15 degrees to the midrib; indusium entire, linear, membranous.

Differs from similar species by having proliferous fronds.

protensum: extended, referring to the long, narrow fronds.

Mostly on mossy boulders along deeply shaded streambanks in evergreen forest.

Africa, Mascarene Isl.

Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Dem. Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea (incl. Bioko), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan and South Sudan, Tanzania , Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Epiphytic, lithophytic, terrestrial.