[4] Goldie's fern is common in moist rich woods, ravines, seeps, or at the edges of swamps and in areas with full or partial shade.

The stipe itself is 1/3 the length of the total leaf, flat or slightly channeled on the upper side and dark brown to nearly black at the base and fades to green distally.

The tip of the leaf is rather short or abruptly tapering which is a distinctive characteristic to help distinguish this fern from similar species.

Allied to Aspidium Cristatum more than to any other species in the genus; but abundantly distinguishable by the greater breadth of the frond, which gives quite a different outline, and by the form of the pinnae, which are never broader at the base, but are, on the contrary narrower than several of the segments just above them.

These segments, too, are longer and narrower, slightly falcate, and those of the lowermost pinnae are never lobed, but simply serrated at the margin.

The fructifications are central near the midrib, and this circumstance prevents the species from bearing, as it would otherwise do, no inconsiderable affinity to A. marginale.Goldie's fern requires medium sunlight or shade and high humidity conditions to thrive along with moist soil with an abundance of organic matter.