Osmunda thurifera Sw.
Lonchitis caffrorum (L.)Bernh.
Adiantum caffrorum (L.)L.f.
Polypodium caffrorum L.
Anemia caffrorum (L.) Christenh. (L.) Christenh.

Rhizome creeping, 2-6 mm in diameter, irregurlarly branched; rhizome scales chestnut brown, 2-3 mm long, ovate-lanceolate in outline, margin entire. Fronds closely spaced, erect, herbaceous, slightly dimorphic, fertile fronds significantly longer than sterile fronds. Stipe 1.7-16.2 cm, chestnut or sometimes strawcoloured at the apex, densely set with hairs or scales becoming glabrous at maturity. Sterile lamina 3.7-23.5 cm long, oblanceolate to elliptic in outline, deeply 2-pinnatifid to 3 pinnate, 8-26 pairs of pinnae. Pinnae ovate to oblong in outline, upper surface sparsely set with twisted hairs largely on secondary rhachis, undersurface densely set with hairs and long narrow scales, these are also present on the rhachis. Ultimate segments lobed, terminating in a cuneate or falcate teeth. Fertile lamina narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblanceolate in outline, 7.5-27 cm long, otherwise same as sterile lamina. Sporangia solitary, marginal, partly covered by reflexed lobe margin, often obscured by scales, exindusiate.

M. caffrorum has a branched and often widely creeping rhizome, the stipe of the fertile frond is strikingly longer than the sterile frond stipe.

caffrorum: from Caffraria, refering to South Africa or more specifically the region of the Eastern Cape.

Wide range of habitats, rock crevices, boulders, rocky hillside, in light shade of shrubs or in seasonally moist exposed situations.

Endemic to south Africa where it occurs in the Western, Nothern and Eastern Cape.

South Africa.

Lithophytic, terrestrial.