182 
The Ferns of South Africa. 
Lastrea pentagona. P. and R. 13, Kuhn, Fil. Afr. 139. 
Aspidium inaequale. Schl. Adum. 23 (in part) ; Kunze, Linnaea, 10. 549. 
Distributed over most of Africa and African Islands, as well as 
East Indies, and Southern N. America. 
West. — Table Mountain (Guthrie, Bolus, 1707), Cape (Pappe). 
East. — Fern Kloof, Boschberg (MacOwan), Voorman’s Bosch, Van 
Staaden’s River (Browning), Compassberg, 8200 feet alt. (Bolus, 1973), 
Bedford (Miss Cook). 
Kaff. — Main, Transkei (Mrs. Young), very common all along the 
Amatolla forests. 
Natal. — Inanda (Wood), (N. insequalis including this, common all over 
the colony. Buchanan, Wood). 
Transvaal. — Macamac (M‘Lea). 
107. Nephrodium in^equale. Hk. 
Plate Cl. Natural size. 
Rhizome procumbent even at the crown, and not so scaly as in 
last species, several inches long, and often with slender rhizomes a 
foot long proceeding from them. Frond firmly herbaceous, 
glabrous, three-pin natifid, ovate-lanceolate, one to one and a half 
feet long, six to eight inches broad, with a paleaceous stipe one 
foot long, and with scattered scales along the rachis and mid-rib. 
Lower pinnae not larger or rather less than those above, and 
almost equal-sided. Pinnae all pointed from a wide base, divided 
below to the channelled rachis into ovate-oblong, obtuse, lobed or 
pinnatifid pinnae, which are sharply serrated, and have a rounded 
or shortly cuneate base. Sori very abundant ; involucre persistent, 
not hairy. 
As stated under N. Filix-mas, var. elongatum, this species and 
that are very closely allied, and if really distinct, often confused. 
It also approaches very closely some of the forms of the European 
N. spinulosum, Desv., and all the specimens so named in the 
Colonial herbaria are this plant. Baker (“ Syn. Fil.” 276) 
mentions N. spinulosum, Desv., as found “ sparingly in Cape 
Colony,” and Kuhn quotes Drege’s locality on P. and R.’s 
