永仁瓶尔小草 yong ren ping er xiao cao

Plants 2-9 cm tall. Rhizomes erect, cylindrical, with fleshy roots, 1 or 2 new fronds arising every year. Common stalk 2-10 mm, ca. 0.5 mm in diam. Fronds usually consisting only of sporophore, rarely with both sterile and fertile lamina portions. Sterile lamina sessile, adpressed to ground, elliptic or ovate-rhomboid, 0.5-1.5 × 0.2-0.7 cm, apex abruptly acute. Sporophore: spike simple, rarely forked, 0.3-1.5 cm, ca. 0.1 mm in diam.; stalk 0.5-6 cm, bearing 3-12 pairs of sporangia.

● Dry slopes, grasslands; ca. 2000 m. Yunnan (Yongren).

The Japanese endemic Ophioglossum kawamurae Tagawa (Acta Phytotax. Geobot. 8: 134. 1939) is very similar to O. yongrenense. Further studies of the latter are needed.