Dryopteris sacrosancta Koidz.
Description Rhizome: erect, branching, scaly.
Frond: 60 cm high by 25 cm wide, evergreen, monomorphic, blade/stipe ratio: 3:2.
Stipe: grooved, straw-colored, dark brown at base, scales narrow-triangular, to 1 cm, shiny black, scales higher up with a lighter, narrow band at the margins, vascular bundles: 3-7 in a c-shaped pattern.
Blade: 3-pinnate near the rachis, deltate-ovate to lanceolate, papery, pale to yellowish green, not shining, brown to black linear scales with a pale base appressed on lower side of rachis and costa; lamina glabrous on both surfaces.
Pinnae: 15 to 17 pair, usually curving towards the apex, overlapping (in the herbarium?); pinnules stalked; costae grooved above, continuous from rachis to costae; segments weakly serrate; veins free, forked.
Sori: round, small, submarginal, indusium: reniform, pale geen, becoming brown, attached at a sinus, sporangia: brownish.
Culture Habitat: dry forests. Distribution: Japan, China, Korea. Hardy to -15°C, USDA Zone 7.
Synonyms
Dryopteris varia (L.) Kuntze var. sacrosancta (Koidz.) Ohwi
Dryopteris sacrosancta
Dryopteris sacrosancta.  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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