Polystichum torresiana Gaudich.
Thelypteris torresiana (Gaudich.) Alston

Rhizome shortly creeping, ca. 15 mm in diameter; rhizome scales narrowly lanceolate in outline, margin entire, brown. Fronds monomorphic, closely spaced, tufted, herbaceous. Stipe 0.25-1 m, glaucous but light brown when dry, glabrous or with a few scales near the base. Lamina 3-pinnate to 4-pinnatifid, deltate in outline, 25-100 x 20-65 cm; lowest pinnae largest, up to 38 cm long, sub-opposite pinnules oblong to lanceolate in outline, apex tapering to a point, sessile; ultimate lobes oblong in outline, apex rounded, base adnate, margin deeply lobed to bluntly toothed, sparsely hairy above, denser along the tertiary rhachis, undersurface loosely hairy; veins free; rhachis and secondary rhachises densely hairy in unfurling fronds, with a prominent ridge of brush-like hairs along the upper surface, becoming hairless with maturity, tertiary rhachis narrowly winged. Sori circular, 1 per lobe; indusium 0.2 mm in diameter, irregularly toothed, hairless or with a few minute hairs.

Naturalised in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern and Western Cape in South Africa.

torresiana: uncertain; probebly after the islands of the Torres Straits between Australia and Papua New Guinea or after a person that Gaudichaud might have had in mind.

Moist situations in shade of evergreen and semideciduous forest, from coast to ca. 100 km inland.

Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius to tropical Asia, Australia, Polynesia and Hawaii; naturalised in Africa and tropical America.

South Africa.

Lithophytic, terrestrial.