墨脱瓦韦 mo tuo wa wei

Lepisorus zosterifolius Ching & Y. X. Lin.

Plants ca. 60 cm. Rhizomes creeping, ca. 2 mm in diam., densely scaly; scales black, lanceolate, 2-3.5 × 0.7-1 mm, very thick; lumina totally opaque. Fronds ca. 0.5 cm apart; stipe straw-colored, 8-13 cm, ca. 1 mm in diam.; lamina grayish green on both surfaces when dried, linear-lanceolate, 40-70 × 0.6-2 cm, stiffly papery, glabrous, base attenuate, decurrent, margin undulate, apex attenuate, long caudate; costa raised on both sides; veinlets indistinct. Sori almost throughout lamina, midway between costa and margins, elliptic or orbicular; paraphyses dark, stellate, 0.2-0.3 mm in diam., opaque and thick.

● On tree trunks; ca. 1800 m. Xizang (Mêdog).

Lepisorus medogensis is similar to L. loriformis, but the scales are appressed and opaque, not spreading, transparent, and iridescent, and the sori are midway between the costa and the margins, not close to the margins. The types of L. zosterifolius and L. medogensis are from the same collection and differ only in lamina width: 0.5-0.9 cm wide for L. zosterifolius, 1.2-2 cm for L. medogensis. The rhizome scales and paraphyses are identical, so L. zosterifolius is not accepted.