Wet, mossy forests and along stream banks in mesic forests
Elevation
300-1600 m
Habit
Plants small to medium-sized, finely dissected; caudices decumbent to upright, often small but up to 5 x 1.5 cm.
Leaves
Fronds clustered at tips of rhizomes, spreading, forming rosettes, often small, but up to 50 x 14 cm; stipes shorter than blade, lower stipe with dark brown to black hairs; blade 3- to 4- pinnate, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 1 cell thick except for veins; rachises with scattered hairs; pinnae up to 18 pairs, lower pinnae usually smaller; ultimate segments usually narrow, deeply cut, less than 1 mm wide (sometimes wider in small forms on mossy rocks and cinder banks).
Sori
Indusia cone-shaped with small, flared lips at tips of segments.
Notes
Name honors the Honorable D. D. Baldwin (1789-1886), ordained minister in Lahaina and self-taught physician, with a great interest in the cryptogamic vegetation of the Hawaiian Islands and who collected the type specimen.
