Epiphyte with a creeping, scaly rhizome; rhizome scales broadly ovate-attenuate, clathrate, iridescent with short-ciliate margins; petioles well spaced with many fine rootlets densely covered with threadlike scales. Leaves simple, entire, glabrous, sessile or nearly so, oblanceolate to obtuse, abruptly acuminate at apex (round on juveniles), gradually tapered to base, usually less than 15 cm long and 4 cm wide, thick, the midrib indistinct except at base, the veins anastomosing. Sporangia scattered chiefly on veins, forming a reticulum. Croat 11703. Throughout tropical America. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest on both slopes in the Canal Zone and from tropical wet forest in Veraguas (Atlantic slope) and Colón (Portobelo).