Polypodium connectile Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 271. 1803; Aspidium phegopteris (Linnaeus) Baumgarten; Dryopteris phegopteris (Linnaeus) C. Christensen; Gymnocarpium phegopteris (Linnaeus) Newman; Nephrodium phegopteris (Linnaeus) Prantl; Phegopteris polypodioides Fée; P. vulgaris Mettenius; Polypodium phegopteris Linnaeus; Polystichum phegopteris (Linnaeus) Roth; Thelypteris phegopteris (Linnaeus) Slosson.

Plants 25-40 cm tall. Rhizome long creeping, with bright brown, ovate-lanceolate thin scales at apex. Fronds remote; stipe dark brown at base, stramineous distally, 15-30 cm, sparsely scaly, nearly smooth; lamina bipinnatifid, deltoid, 13-20 × 10-18 cm, acuminate and pinnatifid at apex; pinnae ca. 10 pairs, usually opposite, spreading, lanceolate, 5-9 × 1-2 cm, basal pair largest, bases slightly or not tapering, free from second pair of pinnae, slightly deflexed, apices acuminate; segments oblong, entire, undulate, or lobed along margins, rounded or obtuse at apices; distal pinnae gradually shortened, bases connected along rachises by triangular wings. Veins pinnate, lateral veins simple or occasionally forked. Fronds herbaceous or papery, drying gray-green or yellowish green, with sparse gray-white acicular hairs on both surfaces, ± with small scales along rachises and costae; scales brownish, ovate-lanceolate and ciliate along margins. Sori ovate-orbicular or orbicular, borne at or near ends of ultimate veins and close to margins. Sporangia with 1 or 2 hairs near annulus. 2n = 60, 90.

Phegopteris connectilis is similar to P. hexagonoptera (Michaux) Fée, which occurs in North America only. In P. connectilis, the proximal pinnae taper to their bases, the proximal and subbasal pinnae are not connected by decurrent wings along the rachis, the laminae are thinly herbaceous and sparsely shortly hairy on both surfaces, and the lateral veins are mostly simple. Phegopteris hexagonoptera has the proximal pair of pinnae connected to the next pair by a wing along the rachis, shorter laminar hairs (less than 0.25 mm vs. mostly 0.3-0.5 mm or longer in P. connectilis), and ultimate veins forked or pinnate.

Forests, shrublands; 1200-3600 m. Guizhou, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [widely distributed in temperate regions of the N Hemisphere, south to mountains of C Asia and the Himalaya].