Description
Deciduous herb with short-creeping, branching rhizome covered with spent stipe bases and thin, pale-brown scales. Fronds are dimorphic. Sterile fronds up to 150mm long with lamina that are 2–3-pinnate with the pinnules 5–10mm long by 3–7mm wide. Fertile fronds are twice as long as sterile, having 3–4-pinnate lamina with contracted pinnules that are narrower than their sterile equivalents. Stipes are twice the length of the lamina, are straw-colored and scaly at the base, and have two vascular bundles when viewed in cross-section. Lamina are deltate to ovate, bright green and glabrous. Pinnae in pairs of 4 to 6, lanceolate with toothed margins and free veins (after branching from the midvein they do not unite with other veins). Sori are scattered along the veins, submarginal and have strongly enrolled false indusium. Sporangia are yellow and mature around midsummer.
