Japan Flora: Rhizomes stout, short; fronds evergreen; stipes crowded, 20-45 cm. long, pale brown, prominently scaly; scales spreading, chartaceous, black-brown to purplish brown, lustrous, linear-lanceolate, the largest some­times lanceolate, 7-20 mm. long, with a long filiform tip, spinuloseciliate, the basal scales ascending, brown, subentire; blades chartaceous, oblanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate, 40-60 cm. long, 15-25 cm. wide, abruptly contracted and long-acumi­nate, slighdy narrowed at base, the rachis with smaller, broadly linear, sparsely ciliate scales; pinnae 20-30 pairs, horizontally spreading, broadly linear, 1-2 cm. wide, long-acuminate, truncate to subcordate at base, sessile or very short-petiolulate, sparsely scaly beneath, more densely so on the costas, nearly glabrous above, coarsely toothed, with a broad mucro on anterior margin near tip; veins single to a tooth, subpinnate, the veinlets simple; lowest pinna sometimes smaller than the others, deltoid-lanceolate, 5-13 cm. long, slightly deflexed; sori nearer the costa than the margin; indusia orbicular-reniform, about 0.5 mm. across, nearly entire.      

Honshu (s. Kanto through Tokaido to Kinki Distr. and westw.), Shikoku, Kyu­shu. Quelpaert Isl., Formosa, China to n. India.