Rhizome short, erect, creeping or ascending, densely covered with pale yellow-brown linear-lanceolate scales up to 6 mm long with a dark midrib. Fronds tufted, 0.4–1.6 m tall. Stipe straw-coloured, 20–50(–107) cm long, with some scales at base; lamina ± oblong, 15–45(–53) cm long, 15–60 cm wide, with 2–7 pairs of pinnae; rhachis glabrous; pinnae sessile, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 4–33 cm long, 1.3–3.3 cm wide, the terminal one long-attenuate with tip serrulate; upper pair of pinnaedecurrent at base on outer side; lower pair mostly 2(–3)–fid; others mostly acute at apex, cuneate at the base; pinna margins slightly undulate or sometimes irregularly lobed; veins branching near base (rarely unbranched) and often again nearer the margin where some also anastomose to a varying extent, sometimes only slightly, or virtually free; costae smooth (in type) to quite densely spinulose beneath. Sori in marginal lines for most of the length of the fertile fronds.