Adiantum diaphanum
Blume Filmy MaidenhairRhizome short, covered with reddish-brown scales; fibrous roots with numerous, small, tuberlike swellings. Fronds tufted, erect to drooping, 8–22 cm long. Stipe relatively long, slender, almost black, smooth; scales few near base, pale. Lamina either pinnate and narrowly triangular or with 1–2 finger-like lobes near base; rachises very slender, dark, shiny and glabrous. Pinnules finely stalked at lower "corners", close-set, asymmetrical, sub-rhomboid to oblong, 3–14 mm long, 2–7 mm wide; minute stiff brown hairs on both surfaces; lower margins straight or slightly concave, entire, upper and outer margins broadly rounded with shallow lobes or teeth. Sori 2–10, mostly 5–10, small, in notches between lobes, covered by kidney-shaped to circular reflexed leaf flap which is covered with minute brown hairs.
GipP, HSF, Strz. Also Qld, NSW, Norfolk Is. New Zealand, Fiji, southern China. Rare in Victoria and restricted to the Strzelecki Ranges of south Gippsland. It forms small colonies near waterfalls, on wet rock faces and banks.
Entwisle, T.J. (1994). Ferns and allied plants (Psilophyta, Lycopodiophyta, Polypodiophyta). In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 13–111. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
