Plants terrestrial, robust, 0.6-1.2 m tall. Rhizome 4-5 mm in diam., with dense, red-brown, subulate hairs. Fronds ca. 2[-5] cm apart; stipe straw-colored, 50-70 cm, thick and strong, base with hairs like those of rhizome; rachis and rachillae abaxially with dense, brown-yellow, short, soft hairs; lamina brown-green when dried, 1- or 2-pinnate, oblong in outline, ca. 70 × 24-26 cm, papery, glabrous or hairy, costa densely pubescent, apex long caudate; pinnae 22-25 pairs, proximally subopposite, 5.5-8 cm apart, distally alternate, obliquely spreading, with stalk ca. 7 mm, pinnatisect to pinnate, narrowly lanceolate in outline, falcate, 18-20 × 2.3-2.7 cm, base asymmetrical, basiscopically shorter, cuneate, progressively reduced distally to form a long acuminate pinnatifid terminal segment; lobes obliquely oblong, 7-8 mm wide, compact, margin serrate. Veins 4 or 5 pairs, pinnate, thick and prominent, simple or 2-forked, oblique. Sori 5-7 per lobe, orbicular, near margin; indusium hemitelioid, wider, truncate above, glabrous or hairy.

The following variety is incompletely known: Microlepia marginata var. jinfoshanensis Ching & Z. Y. Liu (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 3(4): 23. 1983), described from Sichuan (Nanchuan).

Forests, shrublands; below 100-1800 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Indonesia, Japan (including Ryukyu Islands), Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam].