Adiantum caudatum Linnaeus var. latilobatum Bonaparte.

Plants terrestrial or epilithic, 10-40 cm tall. Rhizomes erect, short, densely covered with scales; scales brown, lanceolate, scale margins dentate. Fronds clustered; stipe brown when young, castaneous-black and partly fallen when old, 3-20 cm, base covered with same brown scales as rhizome and multicellular articulate hairs on whole stipe; lamina 1-pinnate, linear-lanceolate, 12-20 × 1.5-3 cm, attenuate upward, base not narrow; pinnae 18-30 pairs, sessile to shortly stalked; rachises same color as stipes and densely covered with same stiff hairs, apex of rachis usually prolonged into a whiplike stolon and rooting to form new plantlets; pinnule stalk ca. 1 mm, horizontally spreading, alternate or subopposite, ca. 1 cm spaced; proximal pair of pinnules suborbicular flabellate, ± reflexed downward; middle lateral pinnules dimidiate, 0.7-2 × 0.6-1 cm, papery, brown-green, abaxially densely covered with brown multicellular stiff hairs, with appressed short hairs facing outer margins, sparsely covered with short hairs adaxially, upper and outer margins parted; segments 5 or 6 pairs per pinna, rectangular, lower and inner margins flat and straight, apex depressed; terminal pinnae subtriangular, upper margins rounded and parted; veins multidichotomously forked, distinctly raised adaxially and less visible abaxially. Sori 5-12 per pinna; false indusia brown, orbicular-reniform, papery, upper margins flat and straight, densely covered with hairs adaxially, entire, persistent.

Material of this species was originally misidentified as Adiantum caudatum by Beddome (Ferns S. India, t. 2. 1863).

On rocks or in rock crevices under thickets on slopes; below 100-1400 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Pacific islands (Polynesia)].