Phlegmarius tournayanus Lawalrée

Plant up to 60(–100) cm long. Stems up to 4–5 mm thick at the base, brown. Leaves up to 15 x 3 mm, narrowly ovate in outline, base rounded, apex acute, entire, subleathery, spreading and forming an angle of 75–90º with the stem, often twisted; midrib visible. Spikes apical, up to 40 x 0.35 cm, including bracts, forked 1–3 times; bracts a little longer than the sporangia, rhombic, subacute at the apex, the lower ones longer than the others and passing gradually into the upper vegetative leaves.

Can be distinguished from H. sooiana by its much longer fertile spike (to 15 x 0.2 in H. sooiana) and the leaves that are rounded at the base (subcordate in H. sooiana).

Primitive rain or riparian forests; old secondary forests; up to 1000 m altitude.

See African distribution.

Dem. Republic of Congo.

Epiphytic.