A small tufted plant, the rhizome is short-creeping, often branched. It has a blackish glossy frond stalk and midrib and green fronds that are narrow, long, and once pinnate. 5-30 cm long. Pinnae: 20 to 35 pairs, opposite to sub opposite, oblong, round at apex. Sori long-oblong.

Walls and rocks.

Spores ripe May to October.

Perennial.

Widespread and fairly frequent throughout Britain.

Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 51 of the 617 tetrads.