Stems short-creeping; scales golden brown to medium brown, concolored, iridescent, margins entire or occasionally with single broad tooth near base. Leaves lax-arching or pendent, closely spaced, 15--75 cm. Petiole 0.5--1.5 mm diam., glabrous, occasionally glaucous. Blade lanceolate, pinnate, 10--45 × 4--15 cm, glabrous, gradually reduced distally; proximal pinnae 3(--4)-pinnate; rachis straight to flexuous, glabrous, not glaucous. Segment stalks 0.5--3.5 mm, dark color extending into segment base. Ultimate segments various, generally cuneate or fan-shaped to irregularly rhombic (plants in American southwest occasionally with segments nearly round), about as long as broad; base broadly to narrowly cuneate; margins shallowly to deeply lobed, incisions 0.5--7 mm, occasionally ± laciniate, sharply denticulate in sterile segments; apex rounded to acute. Indusia transversely oblong or crescent-shaped, 1--3(--7) mm, glabrous . Spores mostly 40--50 µm diam. 2 n = 120.