Rhizome erect or suberect caudex densely scaly at the apex, up to at least 100 cm in height and 3-5 cm diam., scales linear acuminate, 1-4 by 0.02-0.15 cm, black or very dark brown (paler and thinner when covered by other scales), frequently with fine paler margins, entire. Fronds dimorphic or, sometimes, sterile and fertile fronds similar, erect, 34-150 by 12-40 cm, fertile fronds longer and more erect than sterile. Stipes 12-58 cm, usually about ⅓ but sometimes over half the frond length, relatively longer for fertile fronds, stramineous to pale brown, darker towards the base, in Fijian and some New Guinean and Solomon Islands specimens and more consistently bicolorous than in Malesian material with a significant lateral black stripe on either side of the groove on the abaxial face; densely or persistently scaly at the base with a few smaller persistent scales extending up the stipe, scales like those of the rhizome, usually increasingly bicolorous further up the stipe. Lamina ovate-narrowly elliptic (smaller fronds 50 by 10 cm) to linear-narrowly elliptic (larger fronds 100 by 20 cm), gradually tapering from the mid-region to a somewhat truncate base, pinnatisect towards apex, pinnate towards base, 16-49 pairs of pinnae. Rhachis and costae stramineous to pale brown, Fijian and some New Guinea specimens with dark stripes extending for about ⅓ the length of the rhachis and in some specimens a second pair of black stripes associated with a pair of longitudinal grooves on the adaxial face, rhachis sometimes with a few persistent scales similar to those at the top of the stipe, costae pale on both surfaces (grooved on adaxial face, semi-terete on abaxial) often with minute persistent scales and short pale appressed hairs. Sterile pinnae 6-21 by 1-2 cm, in the mid-region oblong-narrowly elliptic, acuminate to shortly attenuate in larger fronds, often slightly auriculate on the basiscopic margin near point of attachment, fully adnate and often decurrent down rhachis in the mid-region, pinnae semi-adnate to sessile or even subpetiolate towards base, increasingly adnate towards the deeply pinnatisect frond apex, papery to thinly coriaceous, mid-green, margins slightly crenate to finely toothed, increasingly toothed towards the pinna apices, pinnae contiguous or almost so at the lamina apex, becoming slightly more distant at the base, veins visible on both surfaces, single or dichotomising and each terminating in a minute, linear, pale clavate gland associated with the base of each tooth, veins single and increasingly spaced in the attenuate apical region, pinnae at apex often at 45° and closely set on rhachis, pinnae in mid-region patent, terminal segment often reduced, basal pinnae pairs (for about ⅓ length of lamina) increasingly distant on the rhachis (up to 2-3 cm apart), the lowermost pair or several pairs markedly deflexed, often with cordate bases at the rhachis, on some specimens the pinnae truncately reduced to finely dentate vestigial obtuse triangular lobes. Fertile pinnae variable in shape, usually narrower than sterile (lomarioid) but sometimes more or less similar (eublechnoid), if lomarioid then narrow linear 15(-20) by 0.25-0.35 cm, with sori occupying the whole of the undersurface and extending to the rhachis, sessile or very shortly petiolate towards the lamina base, towards the lamina apex adnate and basiscopically decurrent with sori continuing on to decurrent base, if eublechnoid then the sori not usually extending to the rhachis and often somewhat discontinuous. Spores 46 by 33 µm (from 24 herbarium specimens), perine scabrous, granulose, microrugulose, or microverrucose, exine smooth to scabrous.
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