Plants terrestrial. Stems stout, short-creeping to suberect, densely clothed at the apex with large, broadly to narrowly lanceolate, orange-brown scales; trophopods present. Fronds erect, spreading, wintergreen and subcoriaceous, clustered near the stem apex, egemmiferous. Stipes 43-68 cm long, stramineous to mahogany, expanded at base, with two large adaxial vascular bundles and an arc of several smaller abaxial vascular bundles, densely scaly at the base and bearing scurfy remnants of multicellular glands, hairs, and scales distally, the scales sometimes leaving distinct scars after abscising, especially near the stipe base. Laminae 45-101 cm long, (very) narrowly ovate, pinnate-pinnatifid, pink to reddish, glandular and scaly during emergence, becoming dark green and glabrate at maturity; free pinnae in 17-23 pairs, the proximal to medial ones 20-33 by 2.8-5.5 cm, suboppositely arranged, deeply pinnatifid, narrowly lanceolate and gradually tapered at apex, often basally asymmetric by the reduction of the basalmost basiscopic lobe, pinna lobes arranged in 24-35 pairs per pinna, narrowly deltate, tapering and separated from one another by broad sinuses often nearly or quite as broad as the lobes, coarsely to obscurely serrulate and frequently involute. Sori 2-4 mm long, linear-elongate, superficial, distributed mostly along the primary areoles of the costules, although occasionally present along the primary areoles of the costae, becoming confluent upon dehiscence of the sporangia; indusia thin and undifferentiated, lax and irregularly spreading following sporangial dehiscence, frequently hidden by fully dehisced sporangia. Spores 64 per sporangium, 30-40 by 15-20 µm (exclusive of the perispore), surrounded by a tightly appressed perispore presenting a reticulum of raised narrow ridges and rugulose expanses between the ridges ornamented with aggregations of rods and cristae.
Moist, montane, mixed evergreen broadleaf-coniferous forests, generally dominated by species of Fagaceae and Pinaceae. Woodwardia auriculata grows in forests having many warm-temperate, east Asian species with Arcto-Tertiary floristic affinities. In Sumatra, this species is infrequent in oak-pine forests in which Pinus merkusii is a local dominant.Woodwardia auriculata and W. japonica are morphologically very similar and sometimes confused in herbaria. The two species can be reliably distinguished by 1) the number of pinna pairs per frond; and 2) the number of pairs of lobes per pinna. Woodwardia japonica has fewer pinnae and fewer lobes per pinna than does W. auriculata. In addition, the pinna lobes of W. auriculata tend to be acuminate at the apex and the sori tend to appear confluent after sporangial dehiscence more often than in W. japonica.These species are clearly closely related, perhaps diverging as recently as the Pleistocene. Specimens of W. auriculata from northern Sumatra sometimes resemble southeast Asian phases of W. japonica. The collection Iwatsuki et al. 1359, collected near Aceh in northern Sumatra, is an example of some of the more puzzling material. The lance-ovate pinnae with falciform lobes separated by broad sinuses is reminiscent of W. japonica. The remaining features, including the acuminate apices of the segments and the large number of pairs of lobes per pinna are features characteristic of W. auriculata.Geographic and elevational isolation between populations of W. auriculata and W. japonica very likely limit gene flow. The two species, however, may not be entirely reproductively isolated from one another. Considerable morphological variation in southern populations of W. japonica and to a lesser extent in northern populations of W. auriculata suggests limited interbreeding may have occurred in relatively recent times. Altitude 1000-2200 m.
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