普陀鞭叶耳蕨 pu tuo bian ye er jue

Nephrodium faberi Baker, Ann. Bot. (Oxford) 5: 316. 1891, not Polystichum faberi Christ (1909); Cyrtomidictyum faberi (Baker) Ching; Dryopteris faberi (Baker) C. Christensen.

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect, short, together with basal stipe densely scaly; scales brown, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, membranous, margins densely ciliate, apices filiform. Fronds dimorphic, up to 52 cm; stipe brownish stramineous, 10-28 cm, ca. 2 mm in diam. at middle; distal stipe scales similar but sparser and smaller. Fertile lamina 1-pinnate, green when dry, adaxially slightly shiny, broadly lanceolate, 13-24 × 5.5-10 cm at base, base widest or nearly so and nearly rounded, apex pinnatifid-acuminate; rachis stramineous, without proliferous bulbils, sparsely scaly abaxially; scales similar to distal stipe scales, light brown, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, margins densely ciliate, apices filiform. Pinnae (5-)7-12 pairs, alternate, approximate, ascendant, falcate-lanceolate, 4-5 cm × 8-11 mm, shortly stalked, bases obliquely rounded and asymmetrical, margins with acute teeth, apices acuminate; acroscopic base auriculate, auricles deltoid, margins entire, apices acute, proximal margins of auricles slightly curved and nearly parallel with rachis; basal basiscopic margins rounded and forming a ± 45° angle with rachis, distal basiscopic margins strongly curved upward; abaxially densely scaly along midribs, adaxially subglabrous; microscales light brown, ovate and linear, margins ciliate, apices filiform; frond texture thinly leathery; venation pinnate, 3 or 4 in pinnate groups, indistinct on both surfaces, lateral veins forked, reaching pinna margin. Sori small, in 1 row on each side of midrib and sometimes in 2 rows on auricles, abaxial or terminal on veinlets, whole fertile lamina fertile, exindusiate. Sterile lamina narrower than fertile lamina and with fewer pairs of pinnae; rachis apex often elongate and forming a long flagelliform nodding stolon with proliferous scaly bulbil.

● Rock crevices by streams in broad-leaved forests; ca. 500 m. Zhejiang.

Polystichum putuoense is very similar to P. lepidocaulon, but its pinna margins have acute teeth (vs. entire) and it has one row (vs. two rows) of sori on each side of the midrib. The trnL-F and rbcL sequences of the two species are slightly different, but P. lepidocaulon has 16-base pair insertion in the rps4-trnS sequence in comparison with P. putuoense (Liu et al., Organisms Diversity Evol. 10: 57-68. 2010).