Todea barbara

Trunk barrel-shaped, up to 1.8 m tall and 1.2 m diam., thickly coated with dark brown to black, fibrous aerial roots. Fronds up to 2.5 m long and 0.7 m wide, almost glabrous, without scales, forming one to several crowns with stipes submerged at base in root mass. Stipe 15–60 cm long, shorter than lamina, c. 1 cm diam., olive-green to light brown, smooth, flattened or grooved, winged at base with 2 broad flanges. Lamina 25–65 cm long, 12–35 cm wide, ovate, elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, bipinnate, green, glossy, somewhat leathery. Pinnules 1.5–4 cm long, narrowly oblong, sessile; attached by vein only at base of pinnae, but by full width toward apex; margins bluntly serrate. Sporangia numerous on lower parts of frond, large, spherical, red-brown when ripe, splitting vertically; spores numerous, green.