Etymology From the Greek pellos, dusky, describing the bluish-gray coloring.

Description Rhizome: short to long-creeping, bicolorous scales with a central stripe or brown.
Frond: evergreen, monomorphic to somewhat dimorphic.
Stipe: dark, shiny, rounded, flattened or with single longitudinal groove above, glabrous or pubescent, usually with a few scales at base, vascular bundles: 1.
Blade: 1-3 pinnate with terminal leaflet, linear to ovate-deltate, leathery or rarely somewhat herbaceous, below glabrous, pubescent, or with hairlike scales scattered along costae, above usually glabrous.
segments broad, stalked or sessile, veins free or rarely netted.
Sori: oblong or linearly joined, submarginal, indusium: absent or false, sporangia: brown.

Distinctive Characteristics dark, shiny stipes, 1-(or 2- or 3-)pinnately-divided blades with a terminal leaflet, and a false indusium.