天山瓦韦 tian shan wa wei

Polypodium albertii Regel, Trudy Imp. S.-Peterburgsk. Bot. Sada 7: 620. 1881; ?Lepisorus clathratus (C. B. Clarke) Ching var. papakense (Masamune) Tagawa; ?L. papakensis (Masamune) Ching & Y. X. Lin; L. pumilus Ching & S. K. Wu; P. lineare N. L. Burman var. albertii (Regel) C. Christensen; ?P. papakense Masamune.

Plants 5-10 cm tall. Rhizomes creeping, 2-3 mm in diam., densely scaly; scales deep brown, lanceolate with broadly ovate base, to 2 × 1 mm, margin with long and thick spines, apex extended into long awn; lumina subsquare or shortly rectangular, large and transparent. Fronds to 1 cm apart; stipe (1-)2-10 cm, slender, ca. 1 mm in diam., smooth; lamina greenish to dark green or grayish brown or yellowish on both surfaces when dried, linear-lanceolate, 5-22(-29) × 0.4-2(-2.6) cm, widest at middle, herbaceous to papery, glabrous or abaxially sparsely scaly, base cuneate, decurrent, margin flat and straight or slightly undulate, apex obtuse; costa raised on both sides, veinlets obscure. Sori along distal 1/3-1/2 of lamina, slightly closer to costa, ± orbicular, ca. 2 mm in diam.; paraphyses deep brown, stellate or lanceolate, margins with long, thick spines; lumina large and transparent, irregular or oblong.

● In shaded and wet rock crevices of mountain slopes or on tree trunks of forests; 1500-2900(-4300?) m. Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan.

Christ (Bull. Soc. Bot. France 52(Mém. 1): 14. 1905) identified collections of this species as Polypodium lineare Thunberg (1784), not N. L. Burman (1768) (= Lepisorus thunbergianus). Collections from Taiwan have been misidentified as L. clathratus.

In photographs Lepisorus papakensis (Masamune) Ching & Y. X. Lin (Polypodium papakense Masamune) from Taiwan is very similar to species no. 47, L. likiangensis. It needs further investigation.