Thelypteris friesii (Brause) Schelpe
Dryopteris friesii Brause

Rhizome short creeping; rhizome scales lanceolate in outline, apex pointed, margin entire, up to 4.5 mm long, dark brown. Fronds monomorphic, closely spaced, erect, not proliferous, firmly membranous. Stipe 24-38 (85) cm long, pale brown, thinly set with minute white hairs. Lamina deeply 2-pinnatifid, narrowly oblong to roughly lanceolate in outline, apex acute, basal 2 pairs of pinnae slightly reduced, then abruptly ending in a long series of much reduced pinnae, often less than 2 cm long, up to 1.7 × 0.6 m; pinnae linear-lanceolate in outline, apex tapering to a point, base truncate; ultimate lobes narrowly linear-oblong in outline, apex pointed, falcate, margins entire to lobed, upper surface with hairs along the veins, costules and costae, lower surface hairs along the costae; veins not meeting below the sinus; rhachis strawcoloured to pale brown, finely covered with short hairs. Sori round, up to 20 per lobe; indusia c. 0.5- 1 mm in diameter, circular to kidney-shaped with a few to many white hairs or entirely lacking.

C. friesii look for: creeping rhizome, veins not meeting below the sinus between the pinna lobes, stipe with a series of much reduced pinnae.

friesii: named after R.E. Fries, Swedish botanist and editor of Botanik 1 (1914), who collected this species for the first time in Zambia in 1911.

Streambanks in light shade of evergreen forest, swamps with sedges.

See African distribution.

Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Dem. Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania , Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Terrestrial.