长叶耳蕨 chang ye er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome ascending to erect, short, together with stipe base ca. 2 cm in diam., rhizome apex scaly; scales dark brown, ovate-oblong, thickly membranous. Fronds 50-70 cm; stipe light stramineous, 15-20 cm, 1-1.5 mm in diam., abaxially sparsely scaly; scales appressed, dark brown, acuminately ovate and broadly lanceolate, varying in size, membranous, erose. Lamina 1-pinnate, green or grayish green when dry, adaxially darker, linear or linear-lanceolate, 30-48 × 3.5-6 cm at middle, base slightly contracted or not, apex pinnatifid-caudate and long acuminate; rachis light stramineous, without proliferous bulbils, sparsely scaly on both surfaces; scales brown or light castaneous, ovate or narrowly lanceolate, erose, acuminate. Pinnae 40-50 pairs, alternate or nearly opposite, attached at right angle with rachis, sessile, lower pairs obviously remote, upper pairs contiguous, nearly falcate, apices slightly angled acroscopically, acute and shortly spinulose, middle pairs 1.5-3 cm × 5-8 mm, bases obviously asymmetrical, acroscopic base with deltoid and spinulose auricles, proximal margins of auricles nearly truncate, parallel or nearly parallel to rachis, acroscopic margins substraight, with regular coarse obtuse spinulose teeth, basal basiscopic margins cuneate, truncate, margins entire, distal basiscopic margins curved upward, toothed, teeth similar to those on acroscopic margins but sparser; adaxially glabrous, abaxially sparsely covered with lanceolate light brown or grayish white microscales; frond texture thinly papery; venation pinnate, visible abaxially, indistinct adaxially; lateral veins often reaching pinna margin, pinnate above midrib from base to apex, dichotomous or simple, simple or dichotomous below midrib. Sori terminal on shorter veinlets, often in 1 row on each side of midrib, up to 8, nearly medial, absent or only 1 or 2 below midrib; indusia present, grayish white, shallowly erose, evanescent.

● Wet cliffs in montane broad-leaved evergreen forests; 700-1400 m. Chongqing (Nanchuan), Guizhou (Jinsha, Xifeng).