Plants 60-120 cm tall. Stipe straw-colored, or with brownish spots, 24-60 cm × 2-3 mm; lamina dull green, ovate-deltoid or ovate-oblong, as long as stipe or shorter, 15-25 cm wide, 2-pinnate, herbaceous to papery when dry, both surfaces glabrous or pilose abaxially. Lateral pinnae 3-9 pairs, basal pair largest, deltoid-oblong, 18-28 × 8-17 cm, stalks 1-2.5 cm, pinnate; lateral pinnules 1-3 pairs, lanceolate, 6-12 × 1.4-2 cm, shortly stalked, base rounded to rounded-cuneate, apex long acuminate or caudate-acuminate; terminal pinnule much larger than lateral pinnules, base very unequal, frequently bifid. Pinnae of second pair trifoliolate or simple (rarely pinnate). Simple pinnae lanceolate, 12-18 × 2-3 cm, shortly stalked to sessile, base rounded-cuneate, somewhat unequal, apex long acuminate or caudate-acuminate; terminal pinna often bifid at base; pinna and pinnule margins serrate. Veins 1- or 2-forked; hydathodes linear, extending into teeth or rarely into tooth margin. Sori extending close to lamina margin.

Populations of Coniogramme intermedia represent two taxa treated here as varieties: one is hairy on the abaxial lamina surface, and the other is glabrous on both surfaces. Hieronymus did not designate a type when he published the species. Indian scholars Dixit and Das (Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci. 88(B): II. 263. 1979) chose the duplicate of Meebold 2587, a hairy lamina specimen, as the lectotype of var. intermedia.

Forests, grasslands, streamsides; 300-2800 m. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Vietnam].