It has a creeping rhizome, covered with black shiny hairs, or reddish brown hairlike scales. The hairs are 4 to 5 mm long and 0.2 mm in diam. The hairs are more like bristles on the older sections of the rhizomes. It is up to 1 cm or more in diameter. It has Stipes (or stalks) that are between 0.4–2.0 m (1 ft 4 in–6 ft 7 in) tall, which have hairlike scales at base, and then becomes smooth and glabrous. They are stramineous (straw coloured) to brown. The leaf stems appear at regular intervals along the rhizome. and branch three or four times, with 1 metre wide fronds, or lamina (leaf blades). The mid green, or dark green fronds, but paler or glaucous underneath. are between 0.5–0.7 m (1 ft 8 in–2 ft 4 in) long and 0.5–0.7 m (1 ft 8 in–2 ft 4 in) wide. They are divided to the base into two spreading fan-shaped halves, which are further divided more than halfway into 4 or more unequal lobes, these lobes are again less deeply lobed once or more times. The ultimate lobes taper to a narrow apex with the edges deeply or coarsely toothed. The main veins are dichotomously branched several times. The veins on the fronds are also dichotomously-branched with 2–4 main veins entering each of the lobes. The juvenile fronds are tomentose (with a layer of downy hairs). On the lower surface of the fronds, are numerous, small sori (spore producers), they are irregularly scattered and of irregular size and shape. They do not have indusia (umbrella-like covers) and have paraphyses (filament-like support structures) which are club-shaped.