滇耳蕨 dian er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect, densely covered with lanceolate brown scales. Fronds ca. 50 cm; stipe yellowish brown, 20-32 cm, 2-3 mm in diam. at base, lower part densely scaly; scales blackish brown at middle, lanceolate, with brown small teeth, mixed with larger broadly ovate brown scales. Lamina 1-pinnate, narrowly ovate or oblong-lanceolate, 28-36 × 10-16 cm, truncate or rounded-cuneate, acuminate; rachis without proliferous bulbils, both surfaces with filiform and lanceolate brown scales. Pinnae 10-16 pairs, alternate, attached at right angles to rachis, extremely shortly stalked, falcate-lanceolate, lower pairs 5.5-10 × 1-2.5 cm, bases oblique, acroscopic margins truncate, basiscopic margins cuneate, apices acuminate or long acuminate; auricles deltoid, margins with small forward-pointing acute teeth; abaxially with lanceolate yellowish brown microscales; frond texture leathery; venation pinnate, midribs slightly raised abaxially, concave adaxially, lateral veins multiple times dichotomously branched, indistinct on both surfaces. Sori abaxial on veinlets, in 2 or 3 rows on each side of midrib; indusia margins irregular.

Under bushes on acidic soils; 1400-2700 m. S Yunnan [Vietnam].

Polystichum chingiae is similar to P. balansae, but its veins are free.