长羽耳蕨 chang yu er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect or ascending, short, densely covered with linear brown scales. Fronds 60-100 cm; stipe yellowish brown, 33-58 cm, ca. 5 mm in diam. at base, sparsely covered with linear, lanceolate and larger scales; large scales bicolorous, blackish brown at middle, shiny, ovate-lanceolate, up to 18 × 7 mm, subentire, caudate. Lamina bipinnate, deltoid-ovate, 40-77 cm, lower part 20-45 cm wide, base slightly contracted, 1 or 2 pairs of basal pinnae sterile, apex acute, fertile; rachis without proliferous bulbils, abaxially sparsely covered with linear dark brown scales. Pinnae often 11-14(-17) pairs, alternate, ascendant, shortly stalked, lanceolate, bases slightly contracted and asymmetrical, apices caudate, sterile; lower pinnae 16-22 × 3-4 cm, 1-pinnate; costa abaxially with scales similar to rachis scales. Pinnules 20-24(-30) pairs, alternate, shortly stalked, falcate-oblong, 1.3-2.6 cm × 5-9 mm, bases cuneate, with deltoid auricles acroscopically, apices acute and mucronate, margins shallowly toothed, tips of teeth spinulose, middle acroscopic pinnules largest; abaxially sparsely covered with shortly filiform microscales, adaxially subglabrous; frond texture thinly leathery to papery; venation pinnate, lateral veins 6-9 pairs, dichotomous, distinct. Sori 8-10 pairs per pinnule, in 1 row on each side of midrib, slightly close to midrib, terminal on veinlets; indusia present, entire.

Forests; 1100-1700 m. Yunnan (Jingdong, Yingjiang) [India, Myanmar, C Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam].

Polystichum longipinnulum is similar to P. semifertile, but its lamina apex is fertile, its rachis lacks lanceolate scales, and its pinnules are narrower and longer.