Rhizome erect, slender, to 3 cm long. Fronds monomorphic, erect, 36-42 cm long, papyrus-like. Stipe grooved above when dry, ca. 13-16 cm long and 1-1.5 mm diam., greenish-strawcoloured, with minute hairs everywhere, the base with sparse scales, scales triangular, thin, stiff. Lamina subbipinnate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate in outline, apex long tapering, 23-26 x 10-12 cm, green, ca. 14-18-jugate; pinnae open, jointed, sub-equilateral, pinnatipartate, lanceolate in outline, apex tapering, acute, max. 5-7 x 1.3-1.8 cm; segments subopposite, joined but connected at the base by a clear wing, subapparent, oblong in outline slightly falcate upwards, apex obliquely rounded, a little more than halfway cut between the margin and the rib, the lobes irregularly subrounded; rhachis above grooved, minutely hairy and sparsely glandular, below glabrous; costae, costules and veins with acicular 0.3-0.35 mm long hairs above, lamina undersurface with capitate hairs bearing an orange gland at the top. Sori more or less medial, 1 sometimes 2 in each lobe of the segments; indusium reniform, small, thin, with the same capitate hairs as undersurface lamina.
Translated from Latin, needs to be checked with specimens.

vandervekenii: named after Prof. Dr. Paul Van der Veken (1928-2012), Belgian botanist (mycologist), professor of botany and director of the BG Gent. He first discovered and collected this species in Rwanda.

On the edge of a stream in montane forest with Syzygium, Mimulopsis, Elatostemma, ... at 1900 m.

See African distribution.

Rwanda.

Terrestrial.