Meniscium simplex Hooker, London J. Bot. 1: 294. 1842; Abacopteris simplex (Hooker) Ching; Aspidium simplex (Hooker) Hance; Asplenium simplex (Hooker) Hance; Cyclosorus simplex (Hooker) Copeland; Dryopteris simplex (Hooker) C. Christensen; Nephrodium simplex (Hooker) Diels; Phegopteris simplex (Hooker) Mettenius; Polypodium simplex (Hooker) E. J. Lowe (1858), not N. L. Burman (1768), nor Swartz (1801); Thelypteris simplex (Hooker) K. Iwatsuki.

Plants 30-40 cm tall. Rhizomes long creeping, with sparse, dark brown lanceolate scales and hooked hairs at apices. Fronds remote, simple, dimorphic; sterile stipes 14-18 cm, stramineous, occasionally with 1 or 2 scales at bases, distally with dense hooked short hairs, sometimes with acicular long hairs; laminae elliptic-lanceolate, 15-20 × 4-5 cm, entire or undulate. Veins visible, oblique distally, parallel to each other, one subrectangular areole between veinlets, above with 2 lines of subsquare areoles. Laminae papery when dry, with hooked short hairs on both surfaces, denser hairs along rachises and veins sometimes with long acicular hairs. Fertile fronds much taller than sterile ones; stipes 30-35 cm; laminae lanceolate, 5-10 × 8-15 cm, entire, bases cordate, apices long acuminate; veins and hairs same as those on sterile fronds. Sori attached on veinlets, orbicular when young, exindusiate, spreading throughout abaxial surface of pinnae when mature.

The correct position of Abacopteris simplex var. trifoliata Ching (Bull. Fan Mem. Inst. Biol., Bot. 10: 10. 1940; Cyclosorus simplex var. trifoliata (Ching) T. J. Liu; Thelypteris simplex var. trifoliata (Ching) C. F. Reed), described from Fujian, is not known.

Forests by streams, forests in valleys; sea level to 1500 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, SE Yunnan [Japan, Vietnam].