Plants 35-50(-60) cm tall. Rhizomes long creeping, glabrous, apices with sparse lanceolate scales. Fronds approximate; stipes 15-20(-30) cm, stramineous, ± with short hairs or sometimes glabrous; laminae lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, 18-30 × 7-13 cm, not tapering to bases, pinnate-pinnatifid, acuminate and pinnatifid at apices; pinnae ca. 15 pairs, flat or obliquely spreading, alternate or subopposite proximally, sessile, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 4-7 × 1-1.5 cm, bases symmetrical and slightly broadened, or proximal pair slightly tapering to bases, truncate, pinnatifid nearly to costae, apices acuminate; segments 15-20 pairs or more, spreading, oblong-lanceolate, 5-6 × ca. 2 mm, entire, rounded-obtuse or obtuse-pointed at apices; proximal pair, particularly acroscopic one, longer. Veins evident, lateral veins simple, 5-7 pairs per segment, proximal pair arising from above base of costules. Laminae herbaceous, when dry grass-green or sometimes dark green; pinnae, except for orange-yellow spherical glands, glabrous or shortly pubescent abaxially, adaxially with dense acicular hairs along grooves on costae, veins occasionally with few short acicular hairs, rachises ± grayish white pubescent. Sori small, orbicular, 4 or 5 pairs per segment, dorsifixed near ends of lateral veins, close to margins; indusia medium-sized, orbicular-reniform, brown, thickly membranous, with sparse grayish white setae, persistent. Spores bilateral, orbicular-reniform, perispores corrugate and regularly finely reticulate. 2n = 144.

Open forests, beneath Phyllostachys pubescens; sea level to 1500 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [N India, Japan, S Korea, Nepal, Vietnam].