Asplenium neolaserpitiifolium Tardieu & Ching.

Plants up to 1 m tall. Rhizome shortly creeping to ascending, thick, apex scaly; scales pale to dark brown, narrowly triangular to linear, entire. Fronds subcaespitose to caespitose; stipe dull gray to gray-brown or almost black, 15-40 cm, semiterete, adaxially sulcate, base scaly, upward subglabrous; lamina triangular-ovate, 15-55(-70) × (9-)25-40 cm, apex acute, tripinnate to 4-pinnatifid; pinnae 10-15 pairs, subopposite to alternate, stalk up to 1 cm, basal pair largest or slightly reduced, triangular to narrowly triangular, often slightly falcate, 10-25 × 6-15 cm, base broadly cuneate, 2-pinnate to 3-pinnatifid, apex acuminate to caudate; pinnules 10-12 pairs, anadromous, stalk up to 4 mm, more than twice as long as wide, basal acroscopic and basiscopic pinnules ± equal, narrowly triangular-ovate, 4-10 × 1.5-4.5 cm, base asymmetrical, acroscopic side truncate, basiscopically cuneate, pinnate to 2-pinnatifid at base of frond, apex acute to caudate; ultimate segments rhombic to obovate or oblong, 8-11 × 3-5.5 mm, base cuneate or segments adnate to costa, apex crenate to sinuate, with blunt teeth, apex obtuse. Costa dull gray to gray-brown abaxially, often becoming green toward apex, adaxially sulcate and often green, with gradually more prominent supravascular ridge toward apex; costule green, sulcate with median ridge adaxially; veins adaxially raised and obvious or flat and hardly visible, anadromous to subflabellately branching, not reaching margin; all axes with reduced scales to subglabrous. Fronds herbaceous to subleathery, dark green to grayish or brown-green after drying; rachis dull gray to brown-gray, semiterete, adaxially sulcate, with supravascular ridge and becoming green toward apex. Sori (1 or)2-4(-7) per ultimate segment, linear, 3-6(-8) mm; indusia pale yellow-brown, linear, membranous, entire, opening toward costule or main vein of segment, persistent. Spores pale brown with lophate (costate) perispore. Plants octoploid: 2n = 288.

Asplenium pseudolaserpitiifolium was often misidentified as A. laserpitiifolium auct. non Lamarck, e.g., by Kunze (Bot. Zeitung (Berlin) 6: 521-526. 1848), Hayata (Bot. Mag. (Tokyo) 23: 24-34. 1909), Bonaparte (Notes Ptérid. 7: 135-139. 1918), Nakai (Bot. Mag. (Tokyo) 39: 120. 1925), Tardieu (Asplén. Tonkin, 48. 1932), Ogata (Icon. Fil. Jap. 6: t. 256. 1935), H. Itô (Index Spec. Typic. Herb. Japon. 4. 1959; J. Jap. Bot. 49: 97-104. 1974), Iwatsuki (Ferns Japan, 147. 1992), Iwatsuki et al. (Fl. Japan. 1: 105. 1995); or as A. cuneatum auct. non Lamarck by De Vol and Kuo (Fl. Taiwan 1: 482. 1975).

Asplenium pseudolaserpitiifolium belongs to a group of large 3- or 4-pinnate species similar to A. laserpitiifolium Lamarck and revised by Tardieu and Ching (Notul. Syst. (Paris) 5: 134-154. 1936), who described five new Indochinese species. Study of the types shows that characters used to describe or key out their taxa are variable and not diagnostic. Our field studies show that habitat conditions and plant age may strongly influence frond morphology and lamina texture. Frond segments of plants collected after desiccation stress are ± curled inward and have a more narrowly cuneate form instead of their original rhombic shape. In the same paper, A. pseudolaserpitiifolium was described and keyed out as a terrestrial plant, but data on the labels of several paratypes state plants were epiphytic. Flow cytometric analyses show plants are octoploids in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan; no data are available from the literature. Spores of the type specimens of A. neolaserpitiifolium and A. pseudolaserpitiifolium are identical.

On rocks at streamsides or epiphytic in forests; 100-1400 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam].