

ICONES FILICUM SINICARUM 



85 



PLATE 42 . 



POLYPODIUM MENGTZEENSE Christ 



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POLYPODIACEAE 



POLYPODIUM MENGTZEENSE Christ in Bull. Boiss. 6:869 (1898); C. Chr. Ind. 544 (1906) 



Matthew in Journ. Linn. Soc. 39: 381 (1911). 



Poly-podium, asp er sum Baker in Kew Bull. (1898) 231 (non P. adspersum Schrad'. 1818, nee 

 Blume 1828). 



Poly podium argutum Wall. var. khasianum Clarke in Ferns N. Ind. (1880). 



Rhizome creeping, epigaeous, flexuose, 4 mm. thick, clad in moderately dense 

 deltoid-subulate dark brown clathrate scales; stipes 1.4-2 cm. apart, slender, naked, 

 shining, pale straminous, 9-12 cm. long; frond lanceolate-oblong, simply pinnate, 26-35 

 cm. long, 12-15 cm - broad; texture almost membranaceous, green and glabrous on both 

 surfaces, rachis slender and naked; pinnae 6-10 on each side under the long attenuate 

 deeply inciso-crenate apex, subopposite, 2-2.5 cm. apart, lanceolate, acuminate, obscurely 

 sneiso-crenate, base obliquely truncate, somewhat cordate, dilatato-auricled on both 

 iides, auricles rounded, the lower one more developed than the upper, the lower pinnae ' 

 as long as the upper ones, horizontally patent, free, sessile, with the lower auricle 

 usually imbricating the rachis, 6-8 cm. long, 8-14 mm. broad above the base, the upper 

 ones more or less adnate, the uppermost one pair below the apex broadly adnate and 

 decurrent some distance along the rachis, the terminal pinna the largest, 9-12 cm. long) 



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and generally deeply inciso-crenate near the base; veins slender but distinct, costa 



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raised on both surfaces, areolae large, uniseriate along both sides of the costa usually ^ 

 with 1 included soriferous veinlet, or very rarely 2, or forked at the apex, the other 

 veinlets free falling some distance short from the margin, all with clavate apex; 

 sori small, globose, superficial, sparsely disposed midway between the costa and 

 margin. 



Distribution: Yunnan. 



A very distinct, elegant fern and evidently a close ally to P. sub auricula turn 

 Blume, from which differs in slender habit, smaller size, fewer and shorter pinnae of 

 still thinner texture, uniseriate large areolae along the both sides of the midrib and a 

 few sparse smaller and remote sori midway between the midrib and margin. It was 

 discoverd by A. Henry in Mengtze, Yunnan, on wooded rocks or on the trunk of trees. 

 P. aspersum Baker is conspecific with Christ's type. 



m 



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Plate 42. Fig. 1. Habit sketch (natural size.) 2. A pinna, showing venation and sori (x 2). 3. 

 A scale from the rhizome (x 76). 



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