Etymology
Named for John George Champion, English botanist, who collected in Hong Kong in the mid-1800s.
Description
Rhizome: erect, massive, bearing several fronds in a tuft, scaly.
Frond: 90 cm high by 20 cm wide, evergreen, remains upright in winter, monomorphic, blade/stipe ratio: 3:2.
Stipe: straw-colored to brown, scales coppery to dark brown, more or less shining, bright, membranous, subtriangular-lanceolate to linear, 0.8--2 cm long, gradually narrowing towards filamentous tails; scales at stipe base to 2 cm long, vascular bundles: 3-7 in a c-shaped pattern.
Blade: 2-pinnate, ovate to oblong-ovate, acuminate at apex, leathery, glossy, scales on rachis dense, similar to those on stipes but smaller and darker.
Pinnae: 12 to 14 pair, basal pair anadromous; pinnules ovate to oblong-ovate, round to moderately acute at apex, auricled and shallowly cordate at base; costae grooved above, continuous from rachis to costae; veins free, forked.
Sori: round, submarginal to medial on pinnules, dispersed evenly on laminar surface, indusium: reniform, at a sinus, sporangia: brownish, maturity: late fall.
Culture
Habitat: dry floor of forests, foot of lower mountains.
Distribution: Japan, Korea and China.
Hardy to -25�C, USDA Zone 5.
Synonyms
Aspidium championi Benth
Dryopteris pseudo-erythrosora Kodama
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Dryopteris championii.
�Illustration from The Cultivated Species of the Fern Genus Dryopteris in the United States, Barbara Joe Hoshizaki and Kenneth A. Wilson, American Fern Journal, 89, 1, (1999), with permission.
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