Synonym: Polypodium speluncae; Davallia speluncae.
Region: South east Asia, S China, Indian Subcontinent, Australia, Africa, West Indies, Brazil, Polynesia.

BotanyType: fern; terrestrial.
Stem: rhizome, much branched, ± 1 cm diameter, multicellular hairs pale, up to 4 mm long.
Leaves: spaced up to 6 cm apart,1.5 to 3 m tall; stipe 20 to 100 cm long and 6 mm wide, at first pubescent, later glabrous; lamina thin, yellow-green, ovate, 40 to 180 cm long, 10 to 140 cm wide, 3–4(–5)- pinnatifid; pinnae alternate, narrowly oblong to oblong to lanceolate, up to 60 cm long and 21 cm wide, 2–3-pinnate to 2–3-pinnatifid, acute; pinnules alternate, up to 13 cm long and 6 cm wide; ultimate segments oblong, 4–12 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, crenate to pinnatifid, obtuse, thinly to fairly densely pubescent above and below with pale multicellular hairs up to 0.4 mm long; rachis thinly pubescent with minute hairs, eventually glabrous.
Sori: 2 to 10 to 20 per segment; clearly intramarginal; round; 1 mm diameter; situated beneath on a vein ending which shows as a usually conspicuous hydathode on the upper surface; indusium often caducous, often pubescent-hispid.