小羽耳蕨 xiao yu er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect or ascending, short, densely covered with linear dark brown scales. Fronds 50-60 cm; stipe stramineous, 18-34 cm, 2-3 mm in diam. at base, densely covered with linear, lanceolate brown scales and larger scales; large scales bicolorous, middle part blackish brown, margins brown, shiny, ovate, ovate-lanceolate, and broadly lanceolate, up to 13 × 6 mm, margins fimbriate, apices long acuminate. Lamina bipinnate, deltoid-lanceolate, 30-39 cm, 9-11 cm wide near basal part, slightly contracted toward base, lower part sterile, apex acuminate or caudate, fertile; rachis without proliferous bulbils, densely covered with linear, lanceolate brown scales and larger scales; large scales bicolorous, middle part blackish brown or dark brown, margins brown, shiny, ovate and ovate-lanceolate, up to 5 × 2.5 mm, margins regularly fimbriate, apices caudate. Pinnae 20-27 pairs, alternate, slightly ascendant, shortly stalked, lanceolate, not contracted toward base, acuminate or caudate, basal pinnae 6-8 × 1.4-1.7 cm, 1-pinnate; costa with linear brown scales. Pinnules 16-20 pairs, alternate, shortly stalked, falcate-deltoid, 0.7-1.2 × 0.3-0.45 cm, thinly leathery, bases cuneate, auricles deltoid, apices acute, margins shallowly toothed, teeth indistinctly shortly spinulose at tip; basal acroscopic pinnules largest, pinnatipartite; abaxially with few lanceolate microscales, adaxially subglabrous; venation pinnate on pinnules, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, dichotomous, distinct. Sori brown, small, (1-)3 or 4 pairs, in 1 row on each side of midrib, terminal on veinlets; indusia small.

● Montane broad-leaved evergreen forests, reddish brown soil; 1800-2600 m. Yunnan (Mile, Yiliang).

Polystichum parvifoliolatum was placed in P. sect. Neopolystichum in FRPS (5(2): 55. 2001) because it has broad-type microscales. Its phylogenetic relationships are unclear.