球子蕨 qiu zi jue

Onoclea interrupta (Maximowicz) Ching & P. S. Chiu.

Rhizome long creeping, dark brown, sparsely scaly; scales brown, broadly ovate, ca. 5 mm, membranous, margin entire or slightly undulate, apex acuminate. Stipe of sterile frond 20-50 cm, stramineous except at chestnut-brown base, sparsely brown scaly; sterile lamina basally pinnatifid-pinnate, apically pinnatifid, dark green when dry, ovate-triangular or ovate, 14-30 × 13-25 cm, papery, slightly scaly, glabrous when mature; pinnae 5-8 pairs, 1.5-3 cm apart, narrowly elliptic, basal 1 or 2 pairs largest, 8-12 × 1.5-3 cm, shortly stalked, undulate or lobed at margin, sessile or adnate upward, connected by rachis wing; veins reticulate. Stipe of fertile frond 20-45 cm; fertile lamina bipinnate, much contracted, 15-25 × 2-4 cm; pinnae narrowly linear; pinnules globose, hardened, separate from each other. Indusium membranous, fixed at posterior base, free distally.

Wet meadows and wetlands in valleys; 200-900 m. Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol [Japan, Korea, Russia].

The typical variety occurs in North America.