292 
THE FERNS OF SOUTH AFRICA 
A small genus of three or four species, according to 
Christensen, but Baker and other authors made it an immense 
genus, including our genera Elaphoglossum, Stenochlaena and 
Leptochilus, besides the species now retained in it, and in our 
first edition we followed that course. 
173. ACROSTICHUM AUREUM Linn. 
Plate 153. Upper part of frond, nat. size. 
Crown erect, very large. Fronds pinnate, rigid, coriaceous, 
glabrous, three to six feet long, one foot broad, with a rigid 
naked stipe one to two feet long. Pinnae oblong-lanceolate, 
the lower shortly stalked and barren, six to fifteen inches 
long, one to two inches broad ; the upper fertile, almost 
sessile, four to six inches long, three-quarters to one inch 
broad, with a recurved margin all rounded and obtuse, or 
mucronate at the apex, rounded or shortly cuneate at the 
base, and with the margin entire. Mid-rib conspicuous ; 
veinlets often obscure, anastomosing freely into small ir- 
regular areolae, but without any main veins, or any free 
veinlets. Fertile pinnae wholly occupied with sori except 
the mid-rib. 
Acrostichum aureum. Linn. Sp. 2, 1069 (1753); Hk. and Bkr, Syn . 
Fit. 423; Sim, Ferns of S. Afr., 1st ed., 226; C. Chr. Ind. 5. 
Chry sodium aureum Mett. Kuhn, Fil. Afr . 50. 
Acrostichum inaequale Willd. Pappe and Rawson, 44; Kunze, Linnaea , 
21, 207. 
Acrostichum maritimum. Gueinzius MS. 
Tropics generally ; often confined to margins of tidal 
lagoons just above flood level; including, in Africa, Zambesia, 
Angola, Guinea Coast, South Africa and Mascarenes. 
East. — Algoa Bay (Stanger fide Kuhn). 
Natal. — At the edge of high water at Cato’s Creek (McKen); all round 
the Bay of Natal, and near Umhlali (Buchanan) ; coast, in marshes 
and estuaries (Wood); river at Crook’s Siding; Illovo River, etc. 
(T. R. Sim). 
Transvaal. — Near Magalisberg (Sanderson). 
Portuguese East Africa. — Lourenzo Marques, Inhambane, Quelimane 
(T. R. Sim). 
