Thelypteris chaseana Schelpe
Lastrea chaseana (Schelpe) Pic.Serm.

Rhizome creeping, up to 20 mm in diameter; rhizome scales lanceolate in outline, apex tapering to a point, margin entire, up to 11 mm long, brown, thinly pilose. Fronds monomorphic, closely spaced, erect or slightly arching, not proliferous, herbaceous. Stipe 30-63 cm long, pale brown, hairless with dark brown scales near the base. Lamina deeply 2-pinnatifid, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate in outline, apex tapering to a point with a deeply pinnatifid terminal segment, basal 3-5 pairs of pinnae reduced and deflexed, up to 30-80 × 14-40 cm; pinnae narrowly oblong, 8-20 x 1.8-2.3 cm; ultimate lobes narrowly oblong, slightly falcate, apex rounded, basal acroscopic lobe enlarged and sometimes overlapping the rhachis, 5-10 x 2-3.5 mm, both surfaces hairy, more so along the veins, costa and costules; veins 1 pair meeting at the sinus; rhachis strawcoloured, pilose. Sori round, up to 16 per lobe; indusia small,subcircular to kidney-shaped with long white hairs.

Christella guenziana closely resembles C. chaseana but has an erect rhizome. C. microbasis has glandular hairs on the lamina undersurface as well as yellow glands on the indusia.
C. chaseana look for: creeping rhizome, 3-5 pairs of gradually reducing and deflexed pinnae, 1 pair of veins meeting at the sinus.

chaseana: named for Norman C. Chase (1888 - 1970), one of our foremost collectors of Zimbabwean plants, particularly of ferns.

Stream and riverbanks in mixed deciduous woodland and riverine forest fringes, among rocks in grassland, near water allthough not always along perennial streams.

See african distribution.

Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania , Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Terrestrial.