Specific name for Haleakala on Maui, where this fern was collected.

Plants medium-sized, epiphytic. Rhizomes short-creeping, covered with scales; scales long-lanceolate, nearly black, often with long, narrow, black tips. Fronds spreading, 20-45 cm long, not proliferous. Stipes glabrous except for scattered linear, dark to blackish scales at very bases, and scattered, minute, appressed glands. Blades usually 3-pinnate, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, mostly less than 14 cm wide. Pinnae stalked, alternate, linear-lanceolate, 2.5-11 x 1-3 cm, lowest pinnae equal to or only slightly shorter than those above. Ultimate segments stalked, mainly wedge-shaped, 5-20 x 2-4 mm, 0-to 3-forked into 1-3 blunt lobes with toothed tips. Veins forked, 1-2 per ultimate segment. Sori 1-2, embedded in somewhat concave adaxial surfaces of ultimate segments, 4-5 mm long. Indusia thin, wide.

This newly described epiphyte suggests a smaller, coarser version of A. schizophyllum. Uncommon and localized on mossy tree branches in rain forests, usually 1-1.5 m above the ground, occasionally on fallen logs, 1,700-2,100 m, in the Waikamoi, Wai'a-napanapa, and Kipahulu areas of Haleakala on East Maui.

Asplenium haleakalense, a usually 3-pin-nate fern, is known only from East Maui and is undoubtedly related to A. schizo-phyllum, but is less finely divided and also may be distinguished by its usually smaller size, wider ultimate segments, glandular stipe bases, and longer sori.