Fronds monomorphic, closely spaced. Stipe up to 8 cm long, dark brown to black, hairless. Lamina pinnate, linear in outline, up to 20 × 3 cm; pinnae fan-shaped to orbicular in outline, up to 1.5 × 1.8 cm, shortly stalked, margin subentire or sterile ones denticulate and sometimes shallowly lobed along upper margin, hairless. Sori on the inner surface of marginal reflexed lobes; indusium linear, curved.

This species is pinnate and has pinnae that are quite round.

balfourii: named after Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour (1853-1922), Scottish botanist, collected on Rodriguez Island and was one of the first scientists to reach the remote island group of Socotra (1880).

On rocks in sheltered places.

Northeast Africa.

Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.

Lithophytic.