Vittaria isoetifoliaBory

WFO wfo-0001108008 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Vittaria isoetifolia, photographed by Jeremy Gilmore
fig. a Jeremy Gilmore, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-01-04 / obs. 109375160
Vittaria isoetifolia, photographed by Augustin Soulard
fig. b Augustin Soulard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 184827148
Vittaria isoetifolia, photographed by Pieter Huybrechts
fig. c Pieter Huybrechts, CC0 1.0 / obs. 51120720
Vittaria isoetifolia, photographed by Pieter Huybrechts
fig. d Pieter Huybrechts, CC0 1.0 / obs. 51120583

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Vittaria isoetifolia is native: Cape Provinces, Comoros, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Seychelles, Tanzania, Zimbabwe Cape ProvincesKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesTanzaniaZimbabwe ComorosRéunionSeychelles
Native distribution of Vittaria isoetifolia, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA
Comoros COM
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
Zimbabwe ZIM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 6 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Oetosis isoetifolia Greene
  • Pteropsis angustifolia Pappe & Rawson
  • Vittaria gueinzii Trevis.
  • Vittaria longidentata Müll.Berol.
  • Vittaria sarmentosa Ruiz
  • Vittaria tenera Fée

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.