Cyathea deckenii Kuhn
Alsophila manniana (Hook.) R. M. Tryon
Cyathea usambarensis Hieron.
Cyathea laurentiorum Christ
Cyathea sellae Pirotta
Alsophila deckenii (Kuhn) R.M.Tryon
Cyathea preussii Diels
Cyathea engleri Hier. ex Brause
Cyathea manniana Hook. var. preussii (Diels) Tardieu

Spiny tree fern

Caudex slender, 0.3-9 m × 10-15 cm, dark brown to almost black, throughout covered with harsh spines, in older ferns the lower stem eventually smooth, without aphlebia in the crown of the stem, occasionally sending down lateral "prop" stems which are eventually creeping and may form a new upright caudex. Fronds firmly papery, 5-10 in number, to 4 m long. Stipe spiny, 25-90 cm long, light to dark brown, bearing conical warts or black spines 2-4 mm long; scales to 20 x 6 mm, glossy, brown, entire, lanceolate in outline, margins fragile with irregularly projecting thin-walled cells. Lamina dark green, up to 2.4 m × 1.3 m, 2 to 3-pinnatifid, ovate in outline, basal pinnae not or little reduced. Pinnae 35-40 on each side of the rhachis, up to 52 × 20 cm, oblong, acute, pinnate into narrowly shortly attenuate pinnate pinnules; ultimate segments narrowly oblong-falcate, apex acute to sharply obtuse, margins entire to minutely crenate; upper surface dark green, glabrous, with minute, brown hair-like scales along the costae, lower surface pale green, glabrous but with brown, ovate scales scattered along the costules and costae; rhachis shiny brown with scattered small prickles, glabrous at maturity. Sori up to 9 per pinnule segment, round, close to the costules; indusium unequally cup-shaped with more or less permanent smooth edge or rather one-sided due to splitting, light brown.

Readily recognizable by the harshly spiny stem.

manniana: first collected by G. Mann, a German botanist .

Along mountain streams in evergreen forest, deep shade, often forming a secondary canopy in high rainfall areas, occasionaly going up into the tree heath zone.

See African distribution.

Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Dem. Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea (incl. Bioko), Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan, Tanzania , Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Terrestrial.