Davallia embolostegia Copeland, 1906
Description
Rhizome without the scales 10-15 mm in diametre, not white waxy (D. embolostegia Rhizome). Scales brown or red-brown without pale border, narrowed evenly towards the apex, curling backward or not, not bearing multiseptate hairs, toothed, basifixed with cordate base and much overlapping lobes = pseudo-peltate, 5-20 mm long by 2-4 mm broad. Stipes pale, adaxially grooved, 15-60 cm long, glabrous or with few scales. Lamina compound (D. embolostegia Habitus), tripinnate, towards base and in the middle part, deltoid and broadest towards base, glabrous, 60-100 cm long by 40-70 cm broad, not or slightly dimorphous. Longest petiolules 4-35 mm long. Pinnae deltoid. Longest pinnae 8-45 cm long by 5-30 cm broad. Pinnules of at least the larger pinnae anadromous, deltoid. Longest pinnules 70-200 mm long by 40-110 mm broad. Ultimate leaflets linear oblong or narrowly ovate, lobed halfway towards midrib. Ultimate segments 5-27 mm long by 2-6 mm broad. Upper ridge at the junction of the costa and pinna-rachis not swollen. Leaf axes glabrous. Margins of the lamina of each leaflet not thickened. Veins in sterile ultimate lobes pinnate (or forked in very narrow lobes), reaching the margin. False veins not present (rarely present and plant like Davallia denticulata elata ). Sori separate, borne several on a segment (if one on a lobe, the lobe not narrowed at base), at the forking point of veins. Indusium also attached along the sides, pouch-shaped, oblong, longer than wide, 1-1.5 mm long by 0.3-0.5 mm broad, upper margin elongated, free, protruding beyond lamina margin (D. embolostegia SEM, picture of indusia). Lamina generally extending into a tooth at both sides of a sorus.
Distribution
Malesia: Sumatra (Mt. Sibele 1 coll.); Borneo (Sarawak, Ulu Limbang 1 coll., Sabah many coll., Kalimantan Selatan, G. Besar 1 coll.); Philippines (Luzon many coll., Negros 7 coll., Samar 1 coll., Mindoro 1 coll.); Moluccas (Seram 3 coll., Bacan 1 coll., Halmaheira 1 coll., Ternate 2 coll., Morotai 1 coll.).
Ecology
Epiphyte, generally in primary forest, sometimes epilithic. Altitude 0-2100 m.
Note
Hybridization with Davallia denticulata is probably rather common in the Philippines (this is confirmed by dr. Price who told me that the two species merge in the Philippines); presumably collections with false veins are hybrids, sometimes they have the same shape of rhizome scales as D. denticulata but basally attached as in D. embolostegia .