海南符藤蕨 hai nan fu teng jue

Rhizomes dark brown, 3-4 × ca. 2 mm, apex covered with scales; scales brown, lanceolate, ca. 8 mm. Sterile fronds: lower, juvenile fronds (bathyphylls) asymmetrically pinnate, more pinnules on basiscopic side, 3-10 × 0.5-1.5 cm; rachis narrowly winged; pinnules flabellate to ovate-rhomboid, 0.5-1.5 × ca. 0.5 cm, base basiscopically cuneate, acroscopically subtruncate, margin crenate, apex rounded, both surfaces scaly, scales substellate; mature sterile fronds (acrophylls): stipe stramineous, 8-13 cm, swollen at base, rachis straw-colored, not winged, rachis and stipe scaly, scales brown, adpressed, substellate, ca. 0.2 mm in diam.; lamina pinnate, 50-65 × 18-23 cm, pinnae 8-11 each side, all articulate, with stalks 2-7 mm, oblong-lanceolate, 11-16 × 2.5-3.4 cm, papery, sparsely scaly scales as in bathyphylls, base basiscopically cuneate, acroscopically rounded or rounded-truncate, margin entire or slightly crenate, apex long acute; veins free, forked once or twice, reaching margin or within 0.2 mm of margin. Fertile fronds with stipe 5-8 cm; lamina pinnate, ca. 30 × 15-20 cm; pinnae ca. 10 pairs, with stalk ca. 6 mm, linear, 13-18 cm × 0.8-1.5 mm. Sori acrostichoid, apparently covering entire pinna. Spores globose; perispore folded echinulate.

● Primary rain forests on northern mountain slopes; 500-800 m. Hainan.

Teratophyllum hainanense is only known from two, small populations in the SC mountains of Hainan.