Polypodium fragile L.

Rhizome shortly creeping or ± erect, c. 2 mm in diameter; rhizome scales lanceolate in outline, 3 x 0.6 mm, reddish to dark brown, glabrous, sometimes with marginal glands. Fronds monomorphic, ± tufted or closely spaced, membranous. Stipe usually shorter than the lamina, 3–22 cm long, straw-coloured to dark brown, with lanceolate scales at the base but glabrous at maturity. Lamina narrowly elliptic, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 5–37 x 1.5–15 cm, 1–3-pinnate and 3(–4)-pinnatifid, basal pinnae not or slightly reduced; pinnae in 4–20 pairs, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 2-8 x 1–4 cm, basal secondary pinnae shortly petiolate, remainder adnate; pinnules pinnatifid into obtuse to acute, oblong lobes; texture very thin and membranous; both surfaces glabrous; marginscrenate or with acute teeth; veins directed into teeth or sinuses; rhachis strawcoloured, glabrous. Sori round, discreet to overlapping at maturity, 0.7-1 mm in diameter; indusia bladder-like, ovate to oblong or cup-shaped, dentate to lacerate, often disappearing with age.

fragilis: fragile, delicate; referring to the fronds.

Among grass and herbs in fairly open places; shady and moist positions on rocks and cliffs; in the spray of waterfalls; in cool, montane wet forest community.

Cosmopolitan: Europe, nothern Asia, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, in the New world from Greenland to Argentinia, Africa except for south-central Africa.

Algeria, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea (incl. Bioko), Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco and Western Sahara, South Africa, Sudan and South Sudan, Tanzania , Tunesia.

Terrestrial.