上斜刀羽耳蕨 shang xie dao yu er jue

Plants evergreen. Rhizome ascending, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. including stipe bases. Fronds ca. 48 cm; stipe light stramineous, ca. 13 cm, ca. 1 mm in diam., whole stipe sparsely scaly; scales appressed, dark brown, broadly ovate or ovate-lanceolate, membranous, margins ciliate. Lamina light green when dry, adaxially darker, linear-lanceolate, base slightly contracted, 1-pinnate, apex pinnatifid and caudate to long acuminate; rachis light stramineous, without proliferous bulbils, sparsely scaly; scales pale brown, ovate, sometimes only with appressed, thinly membranous scales at base. Pinnae 30-35 pairs, alternate or nearly opposite, approximate or slightly imbricate, sessile or subsessile, strongly ascendant, oblong-falcate, apices acute, aristate-spinulose, obviously curved upward, bases obviously asymmetrical, acroscopic base raised forming an acuminate auricle, apex of auricles long aristate-spinulose, entire on both sides of auricles, acroscopic margins of pinnae straight, weakly toothed, basiscopic margins of pinnae truncate, straight and entire except curved apical part with 2 or 3 short teeth, basal basiscopic margins narrowly cuneate; adaxially glabrous, abaxially sparsely covered with narrowly lanceolate light brown and linear microscales; frond texture papery; venation slightly visible abaxially, distinct adaxially; lateral veins not reaching pinna margin, pinnate above pinna midrib from base upward, dichotomous or simple, simple and rarely dichotomous below pinna midrib. Sori small, (1-)4-6 above pinna midrib, terminal on shorter veinlets, slightly closer to pinna margin than to midrib, none or rarely 1 on apical part below midrib; indusia evanescent.

● Valleys; ca. 1500 m. Chongqing (Qijiang).

Polystichum assurgentipinnum is similar to P. submarginale, but its auricles are narrowly deltoid and its pinnae are entire on both acroscopic and basiscopic margins and are almost completely sterile below pinna midrib.