Latin tuba, trumpet shaped,+ floris, flower, for the tube-shaped indusia.

Plants medium-sized, terrestrial to epiphytic. Rhizomes climbing, 1.5-4 mm diam., clothed with deciduous, fine, black hairs. Fronds spreading. Stipes about 1/8-1/10 frond length, with sparse, fine, dark hairs at bases. Blades 2-to 3-pinnate, narrowly lanceolate, 15-57 x 5-25 cm, glabrous, basal pinnae often reduced to 1/4-1/2 length of middle pinnae, dark green, chartaceous, distal rachises narrowly winged. Pinnae 16-27 pairs, lanceolate, middle pinnae mostly 3.5-5 x longer than wide. Ultimate seg-ments lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, cut into 2-5 narrow, toothed lobes. Sori marginal, stalked, projecting in plane of blade from sinuses in ultimate segments. Indusia tubular to cone-shaped, narrow at bases, abruptly truncate at tips (occasionally inconspicuously 2-lipped). 

Terrestrial or low epiphyte in moist forests, 300-1,200 m, only on Kaua 'i.

Hillebrand (1888), referring to the indusia in the discussion of Trichomanes davallioides, noted "only one specimen from Kauai [was] simply truncate." This specimen was surely T. tubijlora.

Vandenboschia tubijlora is set apart from V. davallioides by its cone-shaped indusia with cut-off tips projecting from sinuses between the ultimate segments; deeply incised fronds; dark green blades; deeply cut, narrow pinnae; and its presence only on Kaua'i.