星毛膜蕨 xing mao mo jue

Sphaerocionium pilosissimum (C. Christensen) Copeland.

Rhizome long creeping, slender, wiry, 0.2-0.3 mm in diam., irregularly branching, densely covered with hairs or glabrescent in older portion; hairs slender, brown to pale brown, multicellular and simple or stellate, with a simple stalk cell and 3-forked, biforked, or simple multicellular arms, simple longest ones up to 1.5 mm. Roots irregularly arising from rhizome, with brownish simple hairs. Stipes remote, slender, 0.2-0.3 mm in diam., 2-4 cm but variable, much shorter than laminae, terete in lower portion, narrowly winged in upper portion, covered throughout with stellate hairs. Rachis distinctly winged throughout, winged rachis similar to segments, ± zigzag in upper portion, densely covered by stellate hairs. Fronds pale green in living plant, brown when dried, bipinnate to tripinnate, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate, (1.5-)4-7(-12) × (1-)1.7-2.5 (-3.5) cm, but variable in size and fully soriferous in smaller fronds, usually widest at middle, rounded to moderately acute at apex; pinnae usually more than 10 pairs, upper ones becoming smaller and indistinct, larger ones stalked, bipinnatifid, or with 2- or 3-forked pinnules, oblong-ovate in outline, sometimes up to 4 cm, more than 1 cm wide, winged throughout and similar to segments, densely stellate hairy; ultimate segments linear, sometimes elongate up to 1 cm, (0.7-)1.3-1.7 mm wide, 1-veined with hairy veinlets, margin entire and hairy, apex rounded to moderately acute, or obtuse, or often retuse. Laminar cells larger; internal cell walls thin, straight. Hairs stellate, usually very dense on stipes, on both surfaces of all axes including veinlets, and at margin of segments and wings of rachis and pinna rachis, usually solitary on veins but 2 or 3 hairs articulate at margin, each with 1 stalk cell and (1-)3-5(or 6) unicellular arms, stalk cells tinted pale brown, thick, ca. 0.3 mm, arm cells needlelike, slender, stiff, semitransparent, up to 0.7 mm. Sori solitary at apex of ultimate segments, often at distal end of segment and apparently arranged marginally on upper parts of frond, deeply immersed, ca. 0.8 × 1-1.2 mm; involucres bivalvate in upper 2/3, shallowly cup-shaped in lower immersed portion, semicircular or slightly wider, as wide as ultimate segments; receptacles included, short, clavate.

Epiphytic on moss-covered tree trunks in cloud forests, or on rocks on slopes in wet forests; 400-1800 m. N and S Taiwan [Indonesia (Borneo), New Guinea, Philippines].