Rhizome erect, ascending or creeping, thick and woody, up to 2.5 cm wide, branched, with a dense felt of golden or chestnut-brown hair up to 4 cm long. Fronds tufted or closely spaced (0.9–)2–3 m tall; stipe pale brown, said to be green with purple stripes when fresh, up to 80 cm tall with silky chestnut hairs at base, thinly pubescent or glabrous above; stipe and rachis often rugulose with persistent hair bases; lamina ovate-lanceolate to elliptic in outline, 1.3(–2) m long, up to 80 cm wide, 2–3- pinnate-pinnatifid, ultimately ± coriaceous; pinnae oblong-ovate to lanceolate-acuminate, 40–45 cm long, 13 cm wide, sessile, lowest pair ± reduced; costa with dense brownish hairs beneath; pinnules lanceolate-oblong, 10 cm long, 2.5 cm wide, usually at least upper 6–8 pairs connected by a narrow wing 2–3 mm wide on either side of costa of pinna; pinnules with ± 10–12 pairs of lobes, these ultimate segments broadly obtuse or rounded, 1.5 cm long, 0.8 cm wide, separated by broad sinuses, entire or lobulate, pubescent on both surfaces; venation plane or impressed above, conspicuously prominent beneath; rachis densely pubescent. Sori short, crescent-shaped or reniform, ± 4 mm long, at base of sinuses and also 1–3 smaller ones on each margin above sinuses; sometimes the narrow costal wings have narrow sori ± 1.4 cm long; paraphyses sometimes apically recurved (according to literature) but those examined 0.4–0.6 mm long with long narrow cells at base and apical one short, straight, rounded or sausage-shaped.