Rhizome stout, elongate, c. 15 mm. diam., very densely clad in dark brown subulate-attenuate squarrose ciliate paleae; stipites distributed. Stipes stout, rigid, glab., dark brown, 5-25 cm. long. Rhachis stout, paler. Lamina 10-30 × 7-24 cm., broadly deltoid, very coriac., 2-3-pinnate. Lower primary pinnae broadly deltoid to rhomboid, up to 15 × 5 cm.; upper smaller, about ovate-lanceolate. Secondary pinnae oblong to ovate-oblong, up to 3 × 1 cm., pinnatisect or again pinnate. Tertiary pinnae or final segs oblong, subacute to obtuse, hardly attaining 5 mm. long. Sori us. found on each seg., submarginal. Indusium c. 2 mm. long, narrowly or rather broadly cup-shaped.

Primarily terrestrial, creeping fern with long, branched dorsiventral rhizomes, rooting at intervals, rhizome densely clothed with scales, diameter without scales 2.2–11 mm. Mature rhizome scales peltate, triangular-ovate, gradually tapering to apex, bicolorous, centre red-brown, margins yellowbrown or paler becoming darker towards base, 13– 16.5 mm long and 2.7–2.9 mm wide, margin fringed with multiseptate hairs and toothed from the base to the apex or with multiseptate hairs restricted to th e apex of the scale. Stipe 1.7–30 cm long, 0.8–2 mm diameter, mature stipe stout, rigid, glabrous except for scales at the base, adaxially grooved, articulated to the rhizome; stipes spaced along the rhizome in two scattered rows 0.5–5 cm apart or sometimes more. Lamina 2.4–28 cm long and 2.9–29 cm wide, tripinnate and then pinnatifid, deltoid-pentangular, often leathery, almost glabrous, lowest primar y pinna longer and broader than others, the basal basiscopic secondary pinnae greatly enlarged, 0.6– 8.7 cm long and 0.3–6.1 cm wide. Larger ultimate sterile segments inciso-lobate to toothed, often each lobe or tooth indented or rounded, veins free, simply forked so that each tooth or lobe is supplied with a vein which does not reach margin, hydathodes sometimes present, false veins either absent or, when present, faint to conspicuous, between true veins. Larger ultimate fertile segments bearing one to several sori per segment, often narrowed below and distinctly dilated above, to accommodate sori, univeined forking into veinlets with sori regularly at junction of veinlets; apex of lamina bearing single sorus, truncate, notched or bidentate. Indusia cupshaped, slightly longer than wide, c. 1.6 mm × 1.2 mm sometimes reaching 3 mm long and 1.4 mm wide. Spores monolete, bilaterally symmetrical, elliptical with a verrucate to tuberculate sculpture .