撕裂铁角蕨 si lie tie jiao jue

Plants 25-35 cm tall. Rhizome erect, short, apex scaly; scales brown or reddish brown, narrowly triangular, entire. Fronds caespitose; stipe dull gray-brown, 4-6 cm, with many narrowly triangular, costate scales with dark brown central zone and almost hyaline margin, adaxially sulcate; lamina narrowly triangular to linear, 20-30 × 3-4 cm, apex acuminate, 1-pinnate to pinnate-pinnatifid; pinnae 20-26 pairs, alternate or subopposite, shortly stalked, middle pinnae obliquely rhomboid, 1.4-2 × 0.6-0.9 cm, apex acute, base asymmetrical, acroscopic side truncate and auriculate-cordate, basiscopic side narrowly cuneate, margins irregularly and deeply bisinuate-bicrenate, basal acroscopic segment most developed, flabellate-obdeltoid, often almost free from rest, first basiscopic segment below second acroscopic lobe; basal pinnae gradually and slightly reduced, often deflexed. Veins visible, basal 1/3-2/3 of costa forming lower margin, lateral veins 2-forked. Fronds herbaceous, green when dry, glabrous adaxially but usually with a small gemma near apex, abaxially with brown small scales or subglabrous; rachis gray-brown to stramineous, with scales similar to those of stipe, subglabrous when old, adaxially sulcate. Sori 5-8 per pinna, linear, 2-3.5 mm, median on acroscopic veinlets; indusia yellowish green to grayish brown, oval-linear, entire, mostly opening toward costa. Spores with lophate (cristate-alate) perispore. Plants sexual: 2n = 144.

On wet rocks at streamsides; 1100-2600 m. Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, N Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam].

The name Asplenium laciniatum D. Don (Tarachia laciniata (D. Don) C. Presl) has been widely and persistently misapplied to this species; see the comment under A. varians (species no. 77).

Fronds of Asplenium gueinzianum are similar to those of A. indicum and A. yoshinagae, as well as to those of the A. varians complex, but have costate scales with hyaline borders and small buds or plantlets on the frond surface near the pinna apex (not on the rachis as in A. indicum/yoshinagae).