Blechnum vulcanicum (Blume) Kuhn

Rhizome creeping to erect often forming a short caudex up to 20 by 3 cm clothed with the densely scaly bases of the old stipes and supporting a small crown of fronds and also under some conditions giving rise (from the growing rhizome apex, and above the ground) to a slender creeping stoloniferous rhizome 0.2-0.3 cm diam. and clothed in narrow triangular, acuminate, entire, reddish brown scales, and on most specimens uniseriate multicellular hairs. Fronds dimorphic, erect or pendulous, 10-70 by 3-30 cm, fertile fronds usually longer than sterile fronds. Stipes usually about half the length of the whole frond, often longer for fertile fronds, 5-40 cm, slender, stramineous to brown, pilose in most specimens, densely and persistently scaly at the base; (hairs sometimes absent at the base of the stipe); scales less dense and less persistent further up the stipe; scales linear to narrow triangular, acuminate, 1-2.5 by 0.1-0.3 cm, entire, concolorous dark reddish brown, shiny, deciduous scales leaving a distinct raised dark scar on the otherwise pale stramineous stipe; hairs sometimes abundant, intermingled with the scales, uniseriate, 0.1-0.35 cm in length, straight, pale or white, varying from sparse and mostly deciduous to dense and persistent. Lamina narrowly to broadly elliptic or deltoid, dull green, pinnatisect to pinnate, 6-30 or more pairs of pinnae. Rhachis and costae stramineous to brown, occasionally glabrous but usually pilose, with persistent fine, uniseriate, straight, pointed pale or white hairs, to c. 0.1 cm long and to c. 7 cells. Sterile pinnae oblong to narrowly triangular, often slightly falcate, obtuse (especially in smaller fronds), acute or acuminate (especially in larger fronds), 4-8 by 0.7-1.5 cm, fully adnate throughout except for basiscopic side of lowest pair of pinnae, coriaceous, yellow-green in fresh material, sometimes pilose on both surfaces but usually more so on the abaxial surface (hairs similar to those of stipe, rhachis, and costae); veins free, furcate, margins thickened, crenate, sometimes fringed with hairs, basal pinnae broader, more falcate, markedly deflexed and not adnate basiscopically. Fertile pinnae narrower 0.4-0.6 cm in width and spaced on the rhachis, indusium sometimes with associated uniseriate hairs; hairs often also arising from the margin of the pinnae. Spores 42.5 by 32.7 µm (from 18 herbarium specimens), perine scabrous to rugulose, exine smooth to granulose or microverrucose.

It is a tropical and subtropical plant. It grows on cliffs and in light forests from mountain to sub-alpine zones. It grows up to 1,600 m above sea level.

Plants can be grown from spores.