广东耳蕨 guang dong er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect, short, rhizome apex and stipe base sparsely scaly; scales dark brown, ovate-lanceolate, margins with shortly filiform teeth; scales marginate, central cells rectangular and each side substraight, marginal cells irregularly curved. Fronds 30-42 cm; stipe stramineous, 10-12 cm, ca. 1 mm in diam.; distal stipe scales sparser, similar to basal stipe scales but smaller. Lamina light brownish green when dry, nearly linear-lanceolate, 20-30 × ca. 2.5 cm at middle, base slightly contracted, 1-pinnate, apex shallowly pinnatifid-acuminate or shortly acuminate; rachis stramineous, without proliferous bulbils. Pinnae 30-35 pairs, alternate, sessile or lower pinnae slightly shortly stalked, apical pairs attached at nearly right angles to rachis or slightly ascendant, all other pinnae ± reflexed, oblong, lower pairs ca. 1.2 cm × 6 mm at base, apices obtuse and mucronate, bases asymmetrical, acroscopic base wider, slightly acute-auriculate or with 1 small acute tip, proximal margins of auricles slightly, curved or truncate, parallel to rachis, distal pinna margin shallowly repand or shallowly toothed, teeth with short and fine acute tip, distal basiscopic margins curved and with 2 or 3 shallow teeth, basal basiscopic margins entire, truncate, straight or slightly concave and curved; adaxially glabrous, abaxially with few linear to lanceolate microscales; frond texture papery; venation pinnate, conspicuous on both surfaces, lateral veins close to pinna margin, pinnate above midrib from base upward, simple or dichotomous below midrib, veinlets rarely twice dichotomously branched. Sori small, terminal on shorter veinlets, relatively close to pinna margin, up to 9 above midrib, 1-3 below midrib on distal part of pinnae, sometimes missing below midrib; indusia large, entire, falling off when mature.

● Rock crevices; ca. 900 m. Guangdong (Ruyuan).

Polystichum kwangtungense is similar to P. yuanum (NW Yunnan), but the latter has conform scales that are slightly toothed. Also, the latter often has only 3 or 4 sori, 6 at the most, above the midrib of the pinnae.