Plants summer-green. Rhizome erect, densely covered with broadly lanceolate brown scales with blackish brown centers. Fronds ca. 12 cm; stipe stramineous, sometimes lower part brown, 2-3 cm, ca. 1 mm in diam. at base, lower part persistent, densely covered with narrowly ovate and lanceolate scales; scales light brown, sometimes brown at middle, serrulate. Lamina 1-pinnate, linear, 9-14 × 1.4-1.6 cm, slightly contracted at base, acuminate; rachis without proliferous bulbils; adaxial scales light brown, linear-lanceolate and hairlike; abaxial scales dense, dimorphic; smaller scales light brown, linear; larger scales brown at middle and light brown on margin, lanceolate. Pinnae 20-28 pairs, alternate, attached at right angles to rachis, approximate, sessile, ovate or deltoid-ovate, middle pairs 6-7 × 4-5 mm, bases broadly cuneate or nearly rounded, auriculate acroscopically and basiscopically, margins with obtuse teeth or pinnatilobate, apices obtuse; adaxial microscales white, hairlike; abaxial microscales light brown, narrowly lanceolate and hairlike; frond texture papery; venation pinnate on pinnules, lateral veins dichotomous, indistinct on both surfaces. Sori on upper pinnae from middle of lamina upward, in 1 row on each side of midrib; indusia present.

Polystichum paramoupinense is similar to P. duthiei but differs in its bicolorous stipe and rachis scales.

● Alpine meadows; ca. 4100 m. W Sichuan (Daocheng), Xizang (Bomi).