黛鳞耳蕨 dai lin er jue

Plants summer-green. Rhizome erect, covered with broadly lanceolate dark brown scales. Fronds ca. 30 cm; stipe stramineous, 7-10 cm, 3-4 mm in diam. at base, lower part persistent, covered with lanceolate and linear light brown scales, and mixed with ovate purplish brown scales. Lamina bipinnatifid, oblanceolate, 26-30 × 3-3.8 cm, base gradually contracted, apex attenuate; rachis without proliferous bulbils, both surfaces covered with scales; scales light brown, lanceolate and linear, abaxially mixed with lanceolate purplish brown or dark brown scales. Pinnae 26-34 pairs, alternate, attached at right angles to rachis, slightly approximate, sessile, narrowly deltoid-ovate to ovate, middle pairs 1.6-2 cm × 6-8 mm, bases broadly cuneate or nearly truncate, auriculate acroscopically and basiscopically, pinnatipartite to or nearly to pinna rachis, apices acuminate. Lobes 4-7 pairs, nearly opposite, slightly ascendant, approximate, elliptic or oblong, distal margins with small teeth, acuminate; abaxially with lanceolate and narrowly lanceolate light brown microscales, adaxially glabrous or with few hairlike light brown microscales; frond texture papery; venation pinnate on lobes, indistinct on both surfaces. Sori on upper pinnae, 1-4 per lobe, sometimes in 1 row on each side of pinna rachis; indusia present, toothed.

● Alpine meadows, Rhododendron shrubs, Abies forests; 3000-3800 m. W Sichuan, NW Yunnan.