Stems creeping, few branched, slender, 1--1.5 mm diam., succulent, brittle; scales colorless, sparse, transparent-reticulate, ovate, 0.4 × 0.3 mm; stems shriveling in 2d year following emergence of leaves. Leaves scattered along stems, ephemeral (dying by late summer), soon shed; sterile leaves erect, 3--15 cm; fertile leaves erect, 5--20 cm; petioles, costae, and costules glabrous. Petiole dark brown in proximal 1/2 or less, becoming greenish distally, ca. 1 mm wide when dry, only slightly furrowed, glabrous. Blade broadly lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, all pinnate-pinnatifid to 2-pinnate, herbaceous to membranous, thin; hydathodes superficial, often poorly developed or absent. Segments of sterile leaves ovate-lanceolate to fan-shaped, distal 1/2--1/3 shallowly lobed; segments of fertile leaves horizontal to ascending, often only partially differentiated from sterile leaves, lanceolate to linear, 8--25 × 2--4 mm; margins reflexed, forming continuous false indusia. Sporangia often in discrete sori. 2 n = 60.