西南鳞盖蕨 xi nan lin gai jue

Davallia khasiyana Hooker, Sp. Fil. 1: 173. 1845; Microlepia angustipinna Ching; M. kansuensis Ching; M. medogensis Ching; M. szechuanica Ching.

Plants terrestrial, ca. 100 cm tall. Rhizome long and creeping, ca. 5 mm in diam., with dense, long, gray-brown, acicular hairs. Fronds ca. 3 cm apart; stipe ca. 30 cm, 4-5 mm in diam. at base, with long, brown, acicular hairs, distal hairs abscising to leave marks; rachis and pinna rachis abaxially with dense brown hairs, adaxially glabrous; lamina green when dried, bipinnate, narrowly oblong in outline, 60-70 × 20-30 cm, firmly papery, abaxially with short, gray-brown, stiff hairs on rachillae and all veins, adaxially glabrous, base slightly shortened or not, apex long acuminate; pinnae 18-25 pairs, alternate, 5-8 cm apart, obliquely upward spreading, with stalk 3-4 mm, linear-lanceolate in outline, 10-15 × 2.5-3.5 cm, base asymmetrical, cuneate, apex long acuminate; pinnules 20-23 pairs, adjacent, almost sessile, spreading, pinnatisect, subrhombic, 1.5-2 × 0.5-0.8 cm, base asymmetrical, basiscopically narrowly cuneate, acroscopically truncate, parallel to rachillae, acroscopic pinnule largest at base, obtuse at apex; all lobules subentire, undulate, or with thick obtuse teeth. Veins prominent abaxially, obvious adaxially, pinnate in lobules, veinlets simple or furcate. Sori small, terminal on simple veinlets or acroscopic branch of furcate veinlets; indusium brown, hemitelioid, almost glabrous.

Forests, near streams; 500-2200 m. Chongqing, Gansu, Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [India, Myanmar, Nepal].

Fraser-Jenkins (Taxon. Revis. Indian Subcontinental Pteridophytes, 80. 2008) suggested that Microlepia khasiyana is not separable from species 13 in this account, M. strigosa. C. B. Clarke (Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Bot. 1: 447. 1880) identified material of this species as Davallia polypodioides (Swartz) D. Don, here treated as a synonym of M. speluncae.