Naturalized

Latin hirsutus, hairy, shaggy, + -ula, a diminutive suffix.

Medium-sized, terrestrial. Rhizomes decumbent to erect. Fronds erect, covered with hairy-margined scales. Stipes and rachises sparsely to heavily scaly, scales small with dark centers, whitish margins, and long, pale, hairy, marginal projections, scales becoming hairlike scales on distal rachises and grooved costae. Pinnae margins irregularly undulate, laciniate, or lobed, undersurfaces and adaxial costae clothed with scattered small, hairy, light tan scales and hairlike scales.

First collected in 1983 along Makapipi Stream in lower Nahiku on East Maui and since collected on Kaua 'i in Hanalei Valley. This escaped cultivar is apparently not an aggressive invader.

Nephrolepis hirsutula 'Superba' resembles N. multiflora but differs by its very irregular, undulate, lacerate, or lobed pinnae.