Davallia trichomanoides var. trichomanoides Blume, 1828
Description
Rhizome without the scales 3-8 mm in diametre, not white waxy (D. trichomanoides Rhizome2). Scales brown or red-brown, with pale border from base to apex or not, flat and nearly acicular, narrowed abruptly from a broad base or above the much broader base evenly narrowed towards apex, often curling backward or appressed to rhizome, usually crisped, margins recurved, not bearing multiseptate hairs, with marginal setae at least in distal part or toothed, peltate, 4-8 mm long by 1-1.5 mm broad. Stipes pale, adaxially grooved, 4.5-20 cm long, glabrous or with few scales. Lamina compound (D. trichomanoides Leaf), tripinnate or quadripinnate towards base and in the middle part, deltoid and broadest towards base, glabrous, 10-35 cm long by 9-25 cm broad, not or slightly dimorphous. Longest petiolules 1-6 mm long. Pinnae deltoid, longest 5-19 cm long by 3-12 cm broad. Pinnules of at least the larger pinnae anadromous, narrowly ovate, longest 20-70 mm long by 10-30 mm broad. Ultimate leaflets linear oblong or narrowly ovate, lobed almost to the 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 simple or forked, not reaching the margin. False veins present, rarely absent. Sori separate, frequently single on a segment at the forking point of veins. Indusium also attached along the sides, pouch-shaped, oblong, longer than wide, 1.2-2 mm long by 0.5-1 mm broad, upper margin not elongated, truncate or slightly rounded, separated from or even with lamina margin (D. t. trichomanoides SEM, picture of indusia). Lamina generally extending into a tooth at both sides of a sorus or only at the outside of a sorus.
Distribution
Continental Asia: India (Kerala 2 coll., Darjeeling 2 coll., Assam and eastern Himalayas many coll.); Nepal (3 coll.); Sikkim (4 coll.); Burma (2 coll.); Northern and Central Thailand (7 coll.); China (Shantung c. 20 coll., Kiangsu 6 coll., Fukien 1 coll., Yunnan, 10 coll., Taiwan, many coll.); Korea (7 coll.); Japan (common from Ryu Kyu in the south to Honshu in the north); Vietnam (Annam, Lang Bian 2 coll., Tonkin 1 coll.).
Malesia: Sumatra (common); Malay Peninsula (common); Java (common); Lesser Sunda Islands (common); Sulawesi (Central 3 coll., Northern 3 coll., Southwestern 4 coll.); Moluccas (Buru 1 coll., Seram 3 coll.); New Guinea (common).
Ecology
Epiphytic and epilithic on different kinds of rock, mostly in wet places, sometimes on dry, exposed, places. Altitude 100-3500 m.
Note
According to Hoshizaki (oral communication) several of the species treated here as synonyms behave as good species in culture. And, as I have seen in our botanical garden, they do indeed. However, after studying over 400 different collections of the entire area I could not but conclude that they all belong to one species. That does not exclude, of course, that different forms from different localities intergrade in nature but behave different in culture. It would be best to give these forms cultivar names ('mariesii' and 'stenolepis'). Formally naming them according to the rules of nomenclature means that quite a lot of collections can not be named. As the spores of all the forms are also extremely similar I have no doubt as to their conspecificity.