Japan Flora: Rhizomes slender, wiry, long-creeping; fronds some­what dimorphic, slender, scattered-pilose, deciduous; stipes erect, slender, 10-50 cm. long, sometimes black-green or purplish red; scales thin, deciduous, sparse, broadly lanceolate to ovate; blades chartaceous-membranous, lanceolate, 30-50 cm. long, 5-15 cm. wide, scarcely narrowed at base, vivid green, often somewhat glaucous, the rachis slender, lustrous, usually glabrous; pinnae 10-25 pairs, linear to lanceolate, the fertile 3-10 mm. wide, the sterile 10-15 mm. wide, acute, sub- sessile,  pinnatiparted, the veins pinnate, the veinlets mostly forked; indusia small, orbicular-reniform, about 0.2 mm. across, ciliate, caducous.  Aug.-Oct. Wet meadows.

Hon­shu, Shikoku, Korea, China to n. India and Siberia, Eu­rope, Africa, New Zealand, and N. America.