Trichómanes rádicans Rootstocks creeping, filiform, stipes ascending, one to three inches long, thin, very delicate, pellucid, much divided, oblong-lanceolate, bipinnatifid.

In the Lowland Lady Fern the rootstock is but slightly concealed by old stipe bases, and so may be distinguished from its sister fern.

Var. intermèdium has the scales of the stipe brown with darker center.

Stipes chaffy with brown scales.

Has the sterile segment thicker and cuspidate, the stipe slender and the secondary veins forming a fine network within the meshes of the principal ones.

In a cross section of the mature stipe superstition sees "the devil's hoof" and "King Charles in the oak," and any one may see or think he sees the outlines of an oak tree.