日本凤尾蕨 ri ben feng wei jue

Plants medium-sized, evergreen. Rhizome shortly creeping. Fronds closely spaced; scales linear, brown, margins entire. Fronds subdimorphic. Sterile fronds: stipe glabrous, straw-colored, brownish at base, 10-30 cm, scaly; lamina pinnate or subpedate, basal pinnae sometimes with a basiscopic lobe or pinnule; lateral pinnae 1-3 pairs, linear-oblong, 10-20 × 1.5-3.5 cm, glabrous, margin irregularly dentate, apex acute; terminal pinna distinct. Fertile fronds: stipe 14-50 cm; lateral pinnae linear, somewhat falcate, 20-30 × ca. 1.5 cm, shortly stalked. Lamina green, thickly papery to papery, sterile pinnules often with broad adaxial central white stripe. 3n = 87.

Exposed on walls; ca. 1200 m. C Taiwan [Japan, S Korea].

Plants of this species were originally treated as a cultivar of Pteris cretica by Japanese botanists. See discussions in Fraser-Jenkins (Taxon. Revis. Indian Subcontinental Pteridophytes, 100. 2008) and in Knapp (Ferns Fern Allies Taiwan, 477. 2011) regarding the close relationship between P. nipponica and the P. cretica group.