Aspidotis schimperi (Kunze) Pic.Serm.
Hypolepis schimperi (Kunze) Hook.

Rhizome creeping, c.5 mm in diameter, with many roots; rhizome scales narrow, margin entire, apex hairpointed, brown. Fronds monomorphic, tufted or closely spaced, erect, 15-50 cm tall, subcoracious. Stipe up to 28 cm long, dark brown to almost black, hairless but with a few brown scales at base when young. Lamina 4-pinnatifid to 5-pinnatifid on the lower basiscopically developed pinnae, roughly hexagonal to broadly triangular in outline, 5-20 × 7-25 cm; pinnules triangular in outline, 1.7-2 x 0.8-1 cm; ultimate segments linear, narrow, c. 10 x 2 mm, adnate and decurrent, with spaced, sharply, finely toothed margins, hairless on both surfaces; rhachis and secondary rhachis dark brown. Sori very small, in the sinuses of the teeth of the ultimate segments; indusium small, membranous, ovate crenate, formed from the inrolled margin.

Could be confused with C. multifida which does not have toothed margins or very long basal pinnae.

schimperi: named after W.P. Schimper (1804-1878), German bryologist and plant collector in North africa and Arabia.

Rocky outcrops, on earth and streambanks, around boulder bases, on termite mounds in open forest and Brachystegia woodland.

See African distribution.

Angola, Cameroon, Dem. Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan and South Sudan, Tanzania , Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Lithophytic, terrestrial.