车前蕨 che qian jue

Rhizome slender, shortly creeping or erect; scales pale brown, linear-lanceolate, 1.5-3.5 × 0.1-0.3 mm, margin obviously denticulate, clathrate. Fronds clustered; stipe indistinct; lamina subleathery, linear-lanceolate, 5-15 × 0.8-1.5 cm, widest at middle or above, apex narrowly acute, base long attenuate; costa indistinct; veins abundantly reticulate, raised abaxially, invisible adaxially. Soral lines 3-5, zigzag, subparallel, continuous or interrupted, or forming nets, lower 1/3 not fertile; paraphyses taeniform. Spores trilete, tetrahedral-globose, surface papillate.

On wet moss-covered rocks or epiphytic on tree trunks in valleys; 300-1600 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, ?Taiwan, Yunnan [India (Assam, Sikkim), N Thailand].

Reviewer Ralf Knapp notes that studies are being conducted by Taiwan Forestry Research Institute to determine whether material from Taiwan corresponds genetically with Antrophyum henryi or if it is closer to A. formosanum.