''Dryopteris inaequalis'' is an

Afrotropical The Afrotropical realm is one of Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Africa south of the Sahara Desert, the majority of the Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, southern Iran and extreme southwestern Pakistan, and the island ...

fern species that ranges from tropical and southern Africa to Madagascar. It has been recorded in Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where it is present in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

and

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

. It is found on forest floors and along forest margins, from middle to high altitudes.

Description

It has a creeping rhizome of up to 3.5 cm in diameter, that bears attenuate pale-brown rhizome-scales of up to 2 cm long. The stipe is up to 80 cm long and is only densely scaled towards its base. The lamina is up to 90 x 33 cm, broadly to narrowly ovate with an acuminate apex with the basal pinnae not reduced, or barely so. The pinnae are up to 33 x 16 cm and form an angle of more than 50° to the

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the grc, ῥάχις [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this c ...

. The pinnules are oblong to very narrowly oblong in outline. The rachis becomes glabrous with maturity.

Varieties

* ''D. inaequalis'' var. ''atropaleacea'' – Tanzania to Zambia. Rhizome and stipe scales black * ''D. inaequalis'' var. ''inaequalis'' – Zambia to South Africa. Rhizome and stipe scales brown

References

inaequalis Ferns of Africa {{Dryopteridaceae-stub