Plants 9-15 cm tall. Rhizomes slender and creeping, densely scaly; scales deep brown with paler margins, lanceolate, margins denticulate; central lumina opaque, marginal 1 or 2 rows of lumina brownish, transparent. Fronds closely spaced; stipe straw-colored, 0.5-2 cm or frond subsessile; lamina yellowish or brownish gray when dried, linear, 6-15 × 0.2-0.4 cm, leathery when dried, base slightly attenuate and decurrent, margin strongly revolute, wrapped around sori, thus frond distinctly moniliform, apex obtuse; costa raised on both sides, veinlets obscure. Sori elliptic, on distal half of lamina, midway between costa and margins, deeply sunken in mesophyll; paraphyses brown, entire; lumina larger, transparent.