Stems compact, erect to ascending, with few to many persistent petiole bases of unequal lengths; scales uniformly brown or bicolored with dark central stripe and pale brown margins, ovate to narrowly lanceolate. Leaves 9--35 × 1--8 cm. Petiole usually reddish brown to dark purple proximally when mature, not articulate above base, relatively brittle and easily shattered. Blade lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2-pinnate proximally, moderately glandular, rarely somewhat viscid; most glandular hairs with thick stalks and distinctly bulbous tips; rachis usually with abundant glandular and nonglandular hairs. Pinnae lanceolate-deltate to ovate, longer than wide, abruptly tapered to a rounded or broadly acute apex, occasionally attenuate; largest pinnae with 5--14 pairs of pinnules; abaxial and adaxial surfaces glandular and sparsely villous, with flattened, multicellular hairs concentrated along midribs. Pinnules dentate, often shallowly lobed; margins nonlustrous, thin, slightly glandular and occasionally ciliate with isolated, multicellular hairs, lacking translucent projections. Vein tips slightly (if at all) enlarged, barely visible adaxially. Indusia of filamentous or nonfilamentous segments, these multiseriate proximally, often uniseriate distally, composed of ± isodiametric cells, concealed by or slightly surpassing mature sporangia. Spores averaging 39--57 µm.
