Aspidium tripteron Kunze, Bot. Zeitung (Berlin) 6: 569. 1848; Dryopteris triptera (Kunze) Kuntze; Polystichum tripteron f. subbipinnatum H. Itô; Ptilopteris triptera (Kunze) Hayata.

Plants evergreen. Rhizome erect, short, rhizome apex and stipe base densely scaly; scales dark brown, lanceolate, margins ciliate. Fronds 30-65 cm; stipe 12-30 cm, ca. 2 mm in diam., distal stipe stramineous, together with rachis and costa sparsely covered with lanceolate scales. Lamina green when dry, adaxially darker, hastate-lanceolate, 30-45 × 10-16 cm at base, with 3 elliptic-lanceolate pinnae; lateral pair smaller, 5-8 × 2-5 cm, shortly stalked, oblique, pinnate, pinnules 5-12 pairs; middle pinna much larger, 30-40 × 5-8 cm, long stalked, 1-pinnate, pinnules 25-30 pairs; all pinnules alternate, attached at nearly right angles to rachis, lower pairs shortly stalked, upper pairs subsessile, middle pairs 3-4 × 0.8-1.2 cm, falcate, apices acuminate; basiscopic base oblique, acroscopic margins straight, acroscopic base with deltoid auricles, margins coarsely toothed or pinnatilobate, teeth and lobes spinulose at apex; sparsely scaly along veins; microscales light brown, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate; frond texture papery; venation pinnate on lobes, veinlets simple, rarely forked. Sori terminal on veinlets; indusia present, slightly erose, caducous. Spores elliptic in polar view, semicircular in equatorial view. 2n = 41.

Rock crevices, on rocks in forests; 400-2300 m. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea, Russia (Far East)].