Terrestrial or epiphytic fern. Rhizome short-creeping, scaly, the scales narrowly lanceolate, to 3 cm long with dark brown cell walls and filiform apices. Stipe dark brown or grey becoming green above, 15–30 cm long, to 6 mm diam., with occasional scales like rhizome and dense brown, appressed ‘scurfy’ scales 0.5–2 mm long, easily rubbed off. Lamina 1-pinnate-pinnatifid to 2-pinnate, lanceolate-deltoid with acute apices, 30–55 cm long, 15–30 cm wide, light green, lustrous, scaly on abaxial lamina and axes; scales on axes ovate, to c. 1 mm long, with dark brown cell walls. Primary pinnae in 5–25 pairs, narrowly lanceolate; bases truncate to broadly cuneate, stalked; margins regularly divided half way to 1 mm away from costa into segments; segments rectangular, with 2 or 3 apical teeth; longest pinnae between the middle and base, 6–16 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, often with a larger ovate or elliptic basal secondary pinnae facing toward the frond apex (acroscopic) with toothed to incised margins; upper pinnae reducing to an ovate pinnatifid segment. Sori (2–) 4–10 mm long, close to and parallel to the segment margins facing toward the pinna apex. Perispores pale with fimbriate broad ridges and areolate lacunae.
Asplenium surrogatum and a sterile hybrid formed with A. bulbiferum G.Forst., marketed under the name ‘Island Beauty’, are occasionally cultivated (Spencer 1995). Asplenium surrogatum was also in cultivation in Britain in the 19th century (Green 1988).
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