Polystichum tripteron (Kunze) C.Presl

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect, short, rhizome apex and stipe base densely scaly; scales dark brown, lanceolate, margins ciliate. Fronds 30-65 cm; stipe 12-30 cm, ca. 2 mm in diam., distal stipe stramineous, together with rachis and costa sparsely covered with lanceolate scales. Lamina green when dry, adaxially darker, hastate-lanceolate, 30-45 × 10-16 cm at base, with 3 elliptic-lanceolate pinnae; lateral pair smaller, 5-8 × 2-5 cm, shortly stalked, oblique, pinnate, pinnules 5-12 pairs; middle pinna much larger, 30-40 × 5-8 cm, long stalked, 1-pinnate, pinnules 25-30 pairs; all pinnules alternate, attached at nearly right angles to rachis, lower pairs shortly stalked, upper pairs subsessile, middle pairs 3-4 × 0.8-1.2 cm, falcate, apices acuminate; basiscopic base oblique, acroscopic margins straight, acroscopic base with deltoid auricles, margins coarsely toothed or pinnatilobate, teeth and lobes spinulose at apex; sparsely scaly along veins; microscales light brown, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate; frond texture papery; venation pinnate on lobes, veinlets simple, rarely forked. Sori terminal on veinlets; indusia present, slightly erose, caducous. Spores elliptic in polar view, semicircular in equatorial view. 2n = 41.

It is a temperate plant. It grows in rock crevices in north China between 400-2,300 m above sea level.