粤瓦韦 yue wa wei

Polypodium obscurevenulosum Hayata, Icon. Pl. Formosan. 5: 322. 1915 ["obscure-venulosus"].

Plants 10-20(-30) cm tall. Rhizomes creeping, 2-2.5 mm in diam., densely scaly when young, soon naked; scales brown when young, becoming dark with age, broadly lanceolate, 2-4 × 0.9-1.3 mm, margin entire, scales with narrow central band of deep brown and opaque lumina, most other lumina transparent. Fronds ca. 1 cm apart; stipe usually chestnut-brown or straw-colored, 1-5(-7) cm, 1-1.3 mm in diam.; lamina greenish or yellowish green when dried, lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, 12-30 × 1-2.5(-3.5) cm, normally widest 1/3 from base, thinly leathery when dried, abaxially sparsely scaly along sides of main veins, base cuneate, decurrent, apex long caudate; costa raised on both sides, veinlets obscure. Sori orbicular, up to 5 mm in diam. when mature, very closely spaced, slightly contracted after maturity; paraphyses pale brown at middle, orbicular, 0.15-0.3 mm in diam.; lumina large.

On tree trunks or rocks in forests; 300-2500 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Vietnam].

The chestnut-brown stipes often used to distinguish this species are not reliable as the stipes are sometimes straw-colored. The rhizome scales fall off to leave dark long-creeping naked rhizomes; the young scales have only a narrow dark band in the center and broad transparent light brown margins; and the paraphyses are quite small, light brown, 0.15-0.3 mm in diam.

"Polypodium suprapunctatum" (Ching, Bull. Fan Mem. Inst. Biol. 4: 76. 1933) belongs here but was merely cited as a synonym and was not therefore validly published (Melbourne Code, Art. 36.1(c)). Goniophlebium caudiceps T. Moore (Gard. Chron., n.s., 25: 234. 1886; Polypodium caudiceps (T. Moore) G. Nicholson), described from cultivated material supposed to have come from Taiwan, was treated as a synonym of Lepisorus obscurevenulosus in the first edition of Fl. Taiwan but was not mentioned in the second edition. If this placement is correct then a new combination in Lepisorus based on G. caudiceps would have priority.