假鞭叶铁线蕨 jia bian ye tie xian jue

Adiantum caudatum Linnaeus var. latilobatum Bonaparte.

Plants terrestrial or epilithic, 10-40 cm tall. Rhizomes erect, short, densely covered with scales; scales brown, lanceolate, scale margins dentate. Fronds clustered; stipe brown when young, castaneous-black and partly fallen when old, 3-20 cm, base covered with same brown scales as rhizome and multicellular articulate hairs on whole stipe; lamina 1-pinnate, linear-lanceolate, 12-20 × 1.5-3 cm, attenuate upward, base not narrow; pinnae 18-30 pairs, sessile to shortly stalked; rachises same color as stipes and densely covered with same stiff hairs, apex of rachis usually prolonged into a whiplike stolon and rooting to form new plantlets; pinnule stalk ca. 1 mm, horizontally spreading, alternate or subopposite, ca. 1 cm spaced; proximal pair of pinnules suborbicular flabellate, ± reflexed downward; middle lateral pinnules dimidiate, 0.7-2 × 0.6-1 cm, papery, brown-green, abaxially densely covered with brown multicellular stiff hairs, with appressed short hairs facing outer margins, sparsely covered with short hairs adaxially, upper and outer margins parted; segments 5 or 6 pairs per pinna, rectangular, lower and inner margins flat and straight, apex depressed; terminal pinnae subtriangular, upper margins rounded and parted; veins multidichotomously forked, distinctly raised adaxially and less visible abaxially. Sori 5-12 per pinna; false indusia brown, orbicular-reniform, papery, upper margins flat and straight, densely covered with hairs adaxially, entire, persistent.

On rocks or in rock crevices under thickets on slopes; below 100-1400 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Pacific islands (Polynesia)].

Material of this species was originally misidentified as Adiantum caudatum by Beddome (Ferns S. India, t. 2. 1863).