疏果耳蕨 shu guo er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect or ascending, short, densely covered with linear brown scales. Fronds 25-60 cm; stipe yellowish brown, 8-21 cm, ca. 1.5 mm in diam. at base, covered with woolly reddish brown scales. Lamina bipinnate, oblong-lanceolate, 20-47 × 5-12 cm at middle, not contracted toward base, base often sterile, apex caudate, fertile; rachis without proliferous bulbils, abaxially sparsely covered with linear and tortuous, reddish brown scales. Pinnae 20-25 pairs, alternate, slightly ascendant, lanceolate, not contracted toward base, bases asymmetrical, subsessile, apices caudate; middle pinnae 5-10 × 0.7-1.2 cm near base, 1-pinnate; costa adaxially sulcate, abaxially sparsely covered with linear and tortuous, reddish brown scales. Pinnules 9-20 pairs, alternate, closely arranged, subsessile, rhombic, 0.7-1.6 cm × 3-6.5 mm, bases cuneate, with obtuse teeth acroscopically, not spinulose, with rounded auricles, apices acute; basal acroscopic pinnules largest; abaxially with few shortly filiform microscales, adaxially subglabrous; frond texture thinly papery to papery; venation pinnate, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, dichotomous, distinct. Sori small, (1 or)2-4 pairs per pinnule, 1 or 1.5 rows on each side of midrib, terminal on veinlets; indusia present, entire or subentire. 2n = 82*.

● Forests; 1700-2200 m. Yunnan (Jingdong, Zhenyuan).

Fraser-Jenkins (Taxon. Revis. Indian Subcontinental Pteridophytes, 332. 2008) suspected that Polystichum oligocarpum would be P. tangmaiense. The latter has lower pinnae contracted toward lamina base and nearly leathery pinnules of ca. 0.5 cm, which are different from the former.