Plants medium-sized, evergreen. Rhizome shortly creeping. Fronds closely spaced; scales linear, brown, margins entire. Fronds subdimorphic. Sterile fronds: stipe glabrous, straw-colored, brownish at base, 10-30 cm, scaly; lamina pinnate or subpedate, basal pinnae sometimes with a basiscopic lobe or pinnule; lateral pinnae 1-3 pairs, linear-oblong, 10-20 × 1.5-3.5 cm, glabrous, margin irregularly dentate, apex acute; terminal pinna distinct. Fertile fronds: stipe 14-50 cm; lateral pinnae linear, somewhat falcate, 20-30 × ca. 1.5 cm, shortly stalked. Lamina green, thickly papery to papery, sterile pinnules often with broad adaxial central white stripe. 3n = 87.

Plants of this species were originally treated as a cultivar of Pteris cretica by Japanese botanists. See discussions in Fraser-Jenkins (Taxon. Revis. Indian Subcontinental Pteridophytes, 100. 2008) and in Knapp (Ferns Fern Allies Taiwan, 477. 2011) regarding the close relationship between P. nipponica and the P. cretica group.

Exposed on walls; ca. 1200 m. C Taiwan [Japan, S Korea].