西藏耳蕨 xi zang er jue

Plants summer-green. Rhizome erect, covered with broadly lanceolate purple brown scales. Fronds ca. 40 cm; stipe purplish brown, 10-12 cm, ca. 3 mm in diam. at base, lower part persistent, densely scaly; scales brown, purple brown at middle, margins brown, lanceolate and linear, mixed with ovate scales. Lamina bipinnatifid, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 30-35 × 4.5-6 cm, gradually contracted toward base, acuminate; rachis without proliferous bulbils, purplish brown, adaxially densely scaly; scales light brown, linear; abaxially covered with linear light brown scales and lanceolate scales, purplish brown at middle, margins brown. Pinnae 26-30 pairs, alternate, attached at right angles to rachis or slightly ascendant, approximate by distance as wide as pinna width, sessile, linear-lanceolate or narrowly deltoid-ovate, middle pairs 2.2-3.2 cm × 7-9 mm, bases broadly cuneate or rounded-cuneate, sometimes auriculate acroscopically, pinnatipartite to or nearly to pinna rachis, apices acuminate. Lobes 6-9 pairs, nearly opposite, slightly ascendant, oblong or deltoid-ovate, apices acute and aristate, upper margins with small teeth, teeth aristate at tip; microscales on abaxial surface light brown, narrowly lanceolate and filiform; microscales on adaxial surface light brown, hairlike; frond texture papery; venation pinnate on lobes, indistinct abaxially, distinct adaxially. Sori on upper pinnae, 1 row on each side of pinna rachis; indusia present, subentire.

● Abies forests; 3600-4000 m. Xizang (Bomi, Nyingchi).