黑鳞铁角蕨 hei lin tie jiao jue

Plants ca. 30 cm tall. Rhizome erect, short, apex scaly; scales blackish brown, narrowly triangular, with broad, fimbriate and hastate base, apex filiform. Fronds caespitose; stipe castaneous to dark brown, 5-7 cm, with scales similar to those on rhizome; lamina linear, 20-23 × 2-3 cm, attenuate to both ends, 1-pinnate; pinnae ca. 25 pairs, basal ones (sub)opposite, upper ones alternate, sessile, middle pinnae oblong-elliptic, 1-1.5 × ca. 0.4 cm, base asymmetrical, acroscopic side truncate, basiscopic side cuneate, margin crenate-serrate, apex truncate-obtuse; lower pinnae gradually reduced. Venation anadromously pinnate, obscure, veins simple or forked. Fronds herbaceous-leathery, brownish green when dry, both surfaces with hastate-stellate scales; rachis dark purplish brown, semiterete, adaxially sulcate, ridges rounded and without wings, with hastate-stellate scales. Sori 6-8(or 9) per pinna, linear, 3-4 mm, on acroscopic veinlets; indusia yellowish brown, broadly linear, membranous, entire, opening toward costa.

● On rocks in forests; ca. 1000 m. Guizhou (Duyun, Tongren).

Asplenium asterolepis is similar, and perhaps conspecific, to A. crinicaule but has smaller, more oblong pinnae. Its scales are deltoid-tridentate with a very long central apical tail, as those of A. crinicaule. At present, this taxon seems to be known only from the type collection and may represent just a local variant of A. crinicaule.