仙霞铁线蕨 xian xia tie xian jue

Plants 8-20 cm tall. Rhizomes erect, short, scales black lanceolate. Fronds clustered; stipe castaneous, glossy, 2-9 cm, ca. 1 mm in diam., glabrous; lamina 1-pinnate, lanceolate in outline, 4-11 × 1.5-3 cm; costae and stalks same color as stipe, smooth; pinnules 5-9 pairs, opposite, nearly alternate upward, horizontally spreading; stalk 2-3 mm, articulate, persistent after pinnules fall; blade orbicular or broadly orbicular-flabellate (rarely obtriangular), ca. 1 × 1.2-1.5 cm, subleathery, adaxially greenish, abaxially glaucous and glabrous, base rounded-cuneate (rarely cuneate), upper margin rounded, slightly undulate; distal pinnules slightly smaller, obtriangular or flabellate; veins multidichotomously branching and reaching cartilaginous margins, visible on both surfaces. Sori (1-)3 or 4(or 6) per pinnule; false indusia black, orbicular or orbicular-reniform (rarely elongated), leathery, upper margins flat and straight or slightly depressed, entire or slightly undulate, persistent. Perispore indistinctly granular.

● Limestone crevices. N Fujian (Xian Xia Shan).