Plants 14-22 cm tall. Rhizomes short, erect or ascending, scaly; scales brown, ovate-lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, ca. 4 mm, membranous, margin ciliate, apex acuminate. Fronds clustered; stipe brownish or brown-stramineous, polished, (2-) 4-8 cm, ca. 1 mm in diam., with oblique or horizontal articulation at top, base scaly, upper parts with sparse articulate long hairs and linear scales, later deciduous; lamina 1-pinnate-pinnatifid, lanceolate, 8-15 × 2-3 cm, papery, both surfaces sparsely hairy and scaly, or occasionally subglabrous, hairs gray or grayish brown, long articulate; scales brown, linear, small; lamina base slightly attenuate, apex obtuse or acuminate; rachis stramineous or tinted castaneous-brown, as hairy and scaly as stipe; pinnae 11-16 pairs, subopposite or alternate, lower 2 or 3 pairs of pinnae gradually shortened, basal pair usually ca. 5 mm; middle pinnae largest, hemielliptic or narrowly triangular-lanceolate, 8-20 × 4-10 mm, base rounded-truncate, acroscopically auriculate, auricles ± overlapping rachis, margin pinnatifid to 1/2, apex obtuse; segments 3 or 4 pairs, hemielliptic, 2-4 mm, entire, rounded. Veins faintly visible, simply pinnate in segments, veinlets oblique, ending with hydathodes. Sori orbicular, terminal at veinlet tips, submarginal; indusia saucer-shaped, margin ciliate.