Plants evergreen, large. Rhizome creeping, robust, brown, up to 5 cm in diam. including remaining stipe bases, apex densely scaly; scales brown, lanceolate, membranous, margin black, toothed; fronds approximate. Fertile frond up to 2.5 m; stipe brown at base, upward green-stramineous, up to 1 m, up to 1 cm in diam., upward glabrous; lamina 2-pinnate with pinnules pinnatipartite, deltoid, up to 1.5 × 1.2 m at base, apex acuminate; pinnae up to ca. 10 pairs, alternate, ascending, slightly asymmetrical, basiscopic pinnules longer; basal pinnae largest, oblong-lanceolate, up to 60 × 30 cm, base slightly narrowed, stalked, broadly lanceolate, apex acuminate; pinnules up to 15 pairs, alternate, spreading, broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, up to 16 × 6 cm, pinnatifid to pinnatipartite; lower pinnules stalked, symmetrical or basiscopic lobes longer, base truncate or basiscopically shallowly cordate, apex acuminate or caudate long acuminate; lobes of lower pinnules up to 15 pairs, slightly ascending, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, apex mostly acute; lobes of upper pinnules gradually narrowed, rounded at apex, sparsely crenate or pinnatilobate; veins pinnate, prominent abaxially, veinlets up to 13 pairs per pinnule lobe, ascending, simple to pinnate. Lamina subfleshy when fresh, thickly papery when dry, grass-green, darker adaxially; rachis and costae green-stramineous, shallowly grooved adaxially, costae and costules with often ± deciduous, finely sandy glands in grooves on adaxial side, with linear or linear-lanceolate brown scales abaxially; scales on abaxial side of rachis black and toothed at margin. Sori linear, up to 12 pairs per pinnule lobe, borne from costule to more than 2/3 of veinlet, often close to pinnule margin, mostly single or double on basal acroscopic veinlet; indusia light brown, membranous, entire, opening acroscopically, persistent. Spores reniform, perispore hyaline and prominent, reticulate ornamentation.
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