Caudex erect or suberect; stipe to 50 cm long, flushed pale to deep red-brown, glabrescent, basal scales to 15 × 1 mm, their margins fringed when young; lamina rigid, dimorphous, to c. 40 cm long with 3 or 4 pairs of pinnae (rarely 7 pairs on fertile fronds), apex pinna-like, a bud rarely present at the base of uppermost pinna; basal pinnae usually unlobed and subsessile; middle sterile pinnae to 18 × 5 cm, their bases cuneate, wider on basiscopic than on acroscopic side, apex acuminate, margins entire; basal sterile pinnae to 20 × 8 cm, more asymmetric than upper ones, the basiscopic margin sometimes sinuous; small veins forming many areoles between main veins, not prominent and sometimes not detectable on the lower surface; costae glabrous on both surfaces; fertile pinnae to c. 10 × 2.5 cm, sometimes with sinuous margins; sori in 2 rows between main veins, each at the end of a single veinlet in an areole (fronds of intermediate type may sometimes occur with more widely-spaced sori not on single veinlets); indusia large, broadly elliptic with an elongate receptacle.
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