Plants 1-2 m tall. Rhizomes creeping, 2-4 mm in diam., woody, covered with brown multicellular hairs. Stipe dark brown, ca. 80 cm, 3.5-5 mm wide, glabrous; rachis 3 or 4 times dichotomously branched; apical buds ovate; bracts ovate, 17-20 mm, margin irregularly toothed, apex obtuse; rachis with a pair of lateral pinnae at each dichotomy; lateral pinnae deeply pectinately pinnatifid, oblong-lanceolate, 15-22 × 4.5-13 cm; ultimate pinnae lanceolate or oblong, 20-40 × 8-15 cm, base asymmetrically attenuate, apex acuminate, not subtended by lateral pinnae; lobes lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 5-10 × 0.8-1 cm, with a pair of lateral stipulelike pinnules at base, margin entire or crenate and sometimes pinnatifid, apex obtuse or emarginate; pinnules linear, 6-10 × 0.7-1 cm, margin undulate or crenate; lamina thinly leathery, gray-green abaxially, dark green adaxially, glabrous; costae prominent adaxially; veins 5-7 in each group. Sori in 1-3 irregular lines on each side of costule; sporangia 7-15.

Collections of Dicranopteris ampla with the lobes crenate, sometimes pinnatifid, were recognized as a form (D. ampla f. irregularis B. Y. Ding & X. F. Jin, Acta Bot. Yunnan. 30: 9. 2008). Ching (Icon. Filic. Sin. 4: t. 153. 1937) initially identified material of D. ampla as D. splendida.

● Thickets, forests; 700-1900 m. SW Guangdong, W Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hainan, S Xizang, S Yunnan.