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Caudex short, erect; stipe to 50 cm long or more, rather dark, minutely hairy; basal scales 10 × 1.2 mm, dark, firm, those above base with pale thinner margins, distal scales and those on rachis thin, mostly caducous; lamina to 60 cm long, always much longer than wide; pinnae to 10 or more pairs, oblique and ± upcurved, apical lamina lobed almost to the rachis; basal pinnae to 20 cm long (stalk to 2 cm) bearing up to 3 pairs of pinnules (at least one pair in small plants); basal basiscopic pinnule to 12 cm long, very deeply lobed but rarely with a free tertiary leaflet; middle pinnae sessile, short-acuminate, very deeply lobed, the lowest lobes at least crenate, lateral veins in the lobes once or twice forked, the basal basiscopic one always arising from the costa; lower surface of costa bearing ± abundant short hairs, hairs between veins usually lacking or few; upper surface of costae bearing dense thicker hairs, between veins some thick hairs (variable); sori on the acroscopic branches of veins, sometimes terminal, usually nearer to the margin than to the costule; indusia well developed, dark when dried, glabrous or variously short-hairy when hairs are present on the lower surface.
Terrestrial fern, usually solitary; rhizome suberect; scales narrowly ovate, c. 4–8 cm long, dark brown; fronds in a crown. Stipe c. 25–30 cm long, becoming brown. Fronds arching, 30–60 cm long, ± bipinnatisect excluding basal pair of pinnae, thinly herbaceous; pinnae mostly pinnatisect, the basal pair largest and most finely divided, ± bipinnatisect, with 1–3 pairs of pinnules, and stalks to 1.4 cm long; lobes narrowly oblong, mostly to 3 cm long, rounded, mostly shallowly toothed; lamina sparsely hairy above; veins all free, densely hairy. Sori small, circular, in single rows on either side of midvein of pinna lobes; indusia reniform, hairy.
