Korea Flora: Habit: Semi-evergreen herb growing in partially sunlit areas; leaves densely arranged on short, nodular rhizome.
Leaves: About 60 cm long.
Stipe: Shorter than blade, densely scaly along with rachis.
Scales: Up to 2 cm long, diminishing in size upwards; ovate-oblong to lanceolate or linear-lanceolate.
Blade: Ovate-oblong, bipinnate; adaxial surface light yellow-green, wrinkled due to impressed veins; abaxial surface whitish.
Pinnae: Elongate-oblong-lanceolate, apex acute, shortly stalked.
Pinnules: Lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 5-8 mm wide; margins serrate; apex acute; auriculate at base on both sides with short stalks at lower portion, sessile at upper portion.
Sori: Covering entire abaxial surface of upper pinnae; indusium round; fertile pinnae withering earlier than sterile ones. Upper Pinnae: Somewhat shortened.
Economic Use: Rhizome used as a substitute for Dryopteris crassirhizoma.
Note: Characterized by whitish undersurface and wrinkled upper surface due to impressed veins.

[Translated from Flora of Korea by T.B. Lee]

 

Japan Flora: Rhizomes stout, short, erect; fronds evergreen; stipes short, tufted, 7-25 cm. long, pale brown, prominently scaly; scales rusty- to dark-brown, membranous, spreading, lustrous, linear-lanceolate to narrowly ovate, subentire, the basal scales broadly ovate, 6-15 mm. long, dense; blades thickly herbaceous to subcoriaceous, oblong to narrowly so, 30-60 cm. long, 15-25 cm. wide, short-acuminate, bipinnatiparted to somewhat bipinnate, the rachis with linear to lanceolate scales; sterile pinnae pinnate at base, pinnati- parted at tip, oblong-lanceolate, 3-5 cm. wide, acuminate, short- petiolulate, oblique, whitish beneath, nearly glabrous on both sides; sterile pinnules broadly lanceolate, 2-3 cm. long, 5-8 mm. wide, acute to subacuminate, more or less falcate, crenately toothed, mucro of the teeth incurved; fertile pinnules much smaller than the sterile pinnules; sori on the upper 1/4-1/3 of the frond, the fertile area deciduous apart from the sterile portion in winter; indusia orbicular-reniform, about 1.2 mm. across, entire.    

Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu. Korea and Manchuria.