边果耳蕨 bian guo er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect or ascending, short, densely covered with linear brown scales. Fronds stramineous, up to 52 cm; stipe ca. 20 cm, ca. 3 mm in diam. at base, densely covered with narrowly lanceolate and linear brown scales; scales attached at right angles with stipe or slightly reflexed; basal scales of stipe dark brown, narrowly ovate. Lamina bipinnate, narrowly deltoid-ovate, ca. 32 × 15 cm, base slightly contracted, lower part sterile, apex acuminate; rachis without proliferous bulbils, abaxially densely scaly; scales reflexed, brown, linear. Pinnae 18 pairs, alternate, slightly ascendant, shortly stalked, lanceolate, middle pairs ca. 8 × 2.5-3 cm, 1-pinnate, acuminate. Pinnules 10-12 pairs, alternate, slightly ascendant, oblong-ovate, 1-2 cm × 6-8 mm, bases cuneate, with rounded auricles acroscopically, margins sparsely dentate with short spinules, apices acute or obtuse and shortly aristate; basal acroscopic pinnules largest, often pinnatilobate; abaxially covered with shortly filiform light brown microscales; frond texture papery; venation pinnate, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, dichotomous, indistinct on both surfaces. Sori brown, 5-10 per pinnule, in 1 row on each side of midrib, close to pinnule margins, terminal on veinlets; indusia present, irregularly erose.

Zhejiang (exact locality unknown) [Japan].

In comparison with Polystichum pseudomakinoi, P. shimurae is larger and only its upper pinnae are fertile, its pinnule margins have spinulose teeth, and its indusia margins are irregularly erose.