Lonchitis crenata (Alston) Schelpe

Rhizome creeping, c. 1.5 cm in diameter, with reddish-brown hairs c. 5 mm long. Fronds closely spaced. Stipe straw coloured, densely set at first with small pale hairs c. 0.8 mm. long, becoming hairless with age. Lamina lanceolate in outline, pinnate in smaller fronds to deeply 2-pinnatifid or rarely 2-pinnate, texture papery, apex with a prominent deeply crenate cultrate segment grading into petiolulate pinnae. Pinnae narrowly triangular in outline often with the lowest segments the largest, apex sharply pointed, margins wavy to deeply lobed; pinnules oblong, rounded to bluntly pointed; ventral surface dark-green almost shining but with curved white hairs set densely along the costa and thinly along the veins; dorsal surface paler dull-green with white hairs up to 2 mm long on the costa, costules and veins and infrequently in the areoles. Rhachis and costa straw-coloured and set with white scales 2–4 mm long. Sori up to 2 mm in diameter, mostly semicircular, set in the smaller sinuses but with larger lunulate sori in the larger sinuses; indusia pale, membranous.

Occurence in Tanzania doubtfull, taxa not described in flora of Tropical East Africa.

crenata: said of taxa that have the margins set with blunt or rounded teeth.

Shaded streambanks in fringing forest and in swamp forest.

Angola, Burundi, Dem. Republic of Congo, Tanzania , Zambia.

Terrestrial.