It belongs to the Athyriaceae family, with the Latin name of Cystoathyrium chinense.

It is a kind of perennial herb, which can grow up to 40 centimeters high. It bears dumpy rhizomes. The thick leaf has a short petiole, with brown ramenta borne on its base. The leaf blade is 30 to 35 centimeters long and 5 to 8 centimeters wide. It is lance-shaped and narrows down gradually from its middle to both sides. The leaf bears about 30 pairs of opposite pinnae. Its ovoid spores are opaque, with spinous textures on the surface. 

Guangye Brake is distributed over the west edge of Sichuan Basin, heartland of Rain House of West China, where it's wet and foggy all the year round. The main cover type there is the subtropical mountainous mingled forest of evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved trees. The pH value of the mountain yellow earth and the mountain yellow brown earth there is 4.5 to 5.5. It's usually grows in the forests on shady slopes. It develops leaves in late spring, and bears sporangia in July and August, which ripen in September.

Guangye Brake is a special species of China in a small quantity, distributed only on the mountainous land on west edge of Sichuan Basin.