杰出耳蕨 jie chu er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome ascending, together with remnant stipe base 1.5-2 cm in diam. Fronds few, 45-80 cm; stipe stramineous, 15-30 cm, 1-2 mm in diam. at base, all stipe to rachis with numerous scales; scales appressed, light brown to reddish brown, ovate, membranous, entire, acute, evanescent. Lamina bipinnate, green when dry, adaxially darker, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 25-45 × 9-18 cm at middle, often slightly contracted at base, broadly rounded, acuminate; rachis stramineous, without proliferous bulbils. Pinnae 15-25 pairs, alternate to opposite, slightly ascendant, or basal pairs sometimes attached at nearly right angles to rachis, slightly shortly stalked, falcate-lanceolate, 2-11 × 1-2 cm, bases broadly cuneate, symmetrical on both sides, apices acuminate or long acuminate, rarely basal pairs acute at apex; costa stramineous or light greenish stramineous, with narrow green wings, adaxially glabrous, abaxially sparsely scaly; scales dark brown or reddish brown, ovate or narrowly ovate, thinly membranous, margins entire, apices caudate and long acuminate, upper part not appressed. Pinnules 7-20 pairs, alternate, approximate, slightly ascendant, oblong, 0.5-1 cm × 2-4 mm, bases cuneate and decurrent forming narrow wings, bases asymmetrical, acroscopic side wider, slightly auriculate, basiscopic margins narrowly cuneate, margins of pinnules pinnatilobate to pinnatifid, apices acute; lobes 2-4 pairs, ascendant, ovate-deltoid, apices often acute and with short spinules curved upward, not lobed or unequally shallowly bilobed; adaxially glabrous, abaxially sparsely scaly; microscales brown, lanceolate; frond texture papery; venation slightly distinct on both surfaces, pinnate, lateral veins simple or forked, 1 veinlet per lobe, veinlets forked on unequally shallowly bilobed lobes, veinlets not reaching pinnule margins. Sori small, ca. 1 mm in diam., terminal on veinlets, close to pinnule margins; indusia present, grayish brown or gray, thickly membranous, entire, evanescent. Spores semicircular in equatorial view, perispore sculpturing plicate.

● By streams in valleys in broad-leaved evergreen forests; 400-1400 m. Chongqing (Nanchuan, Wuling), Hubei, NW and W Hunan (Fenghuang, Sangzhi, Shimen).