Rhizome decumbent, dark brown, stout, densely scaly; scales red-brown, lanceolate, 2-4 cm, membranous, entire or with a few teeth, fibriform. Stipes close, 30-110 cm, 3-15 mm in diam., base densely scaly; upper part of stipe and rachis sparsely covered with brown, broadly lanceolate scales, surface rough with scale scars; lamina deeply bipinnatifid, brown or slightly green when dry, oblong-ovate or elliptic, 35-120 × 30-40 cm, leathery, glabrous, apex acuminate; pinnae 5-9(-13) pairs, shortly stalked, lanceolate; lower and middle pinnae 10-30 × 4-9 cm, deeply pinnatifid to 1-2 mm from costa, base asymmetrical with 1-3 basiscopic lobes lacking, apex long acuminate or caudate; lobes 10-14(-24) pairs, close or separate, oblique, oblong-lanceolate, 3-7(-9) × 0.5-0.9 cm, slightly narrowed to base, margin cuspidately serrulate, occasionally lobed, apex long acuminate or caudate; veins obvious, anastomosing with 1 row of areoles along costae and 2 or 3 rows of discrete, polygonal areoles, free distally, simple or forked. Leaf-bearing bulbils small and usually abundant on adaxial surfaces of pinna lobes. Sori occupying costular areoles, crescent-shaped or elliptic, sunken in rimmed depressions; indusia dark brown, thickly papery. 2n = 68.
