Plants 15-27 cm tall. Rhizomes long and creeping, ca. 2 mm in diam., densely scaly; scales bicolored, chestnut to black with pale margins, lanceolate, 2-3 × 0.5-1 mm, margins serrate, central lumina opaque, marginal 1 or 2 rows of lumina transparent. Fronds remote; stipe straw-colored, 0.5-5 cm; lamina yellowish green when dried, linear, 10-20 × 0.4-0.8 cm, leathery when dried, margin slightly revolute; costa raised on both sides, veinlets obscure. Sori elliptic or orbicular, ± confluent into a pair of linear coenosori when mature; paraphyses brown with colorless margins, suborbicular, margins entire or erose.