钻鳞耳蕨 zuan lin er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect or ascending, short, densely covered with linear brown scales. Fronds 60-80 cm; stipe yellowish brown, 30-38 cm, ca. 3.5 mm in diam. at base, covered with linear, lanceolate and larger scales; large scales dense on basal stipe, bicolorous, blackish brown at middle, shiny, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, up to 12 × 2.5-5 mm, subentire, caudate. Lamina bipinnate, elliptic-lanceolate, 50-64 cm, middle part 18-22 cm wide, slightly contracted toward base, lower part fertile, apex acuminate, fertile; rachis without proliferous bulbils, abaxially scaly; scales pointing downward, dark brown, linear and subulate; subulate scale margins fimbriate. Pinnae 18-26 pairs, alternate, attached at right angles to rachis, shortly stalked, lanceolate, bases not contracted, asymmetrical, apices acuminate; middle pinnae 8-12 cm, near basal pairs 2.6-2.8 cm wide, 1-pinnate; costa abaxially with scales similar to rachis scales. Pinnules 13-17 pairs, alternate, shortly stalked, falcate-deltoid, 1.2-1.5 cm × 5-6 mm, bases cuneate, with deltoid auricles acroscopically, margins shallowly toothed, teeth long spinulose at tip, apices acute; basal acroscopic pinnules largest, pinnatipartite to midrib; abaxially sparsely covered with shortly filiform microscales, adaxially subglabrous; frond texture papery; venation pinnate, lateral veins 6-8 pairs, dichotomous, distinct. Sori 5-7 pairs per pinnule, in 1 row on each side of midrib, medial between midrib and pinnule margins, terminal on veinlets; indusia present, subentire.

● Mountain slopes, valleys, broad-leaved forests, roadsides, coniferous forests, bamboo forests; 1300-1800 m. Guizhou (Yinjiang), Sichuan.

Polystichum subulatum is similar to P. makinoi, but it is larger and its rachis scales are linear to subulate.