Arachniodes is a fern genus in the family Dryopteridaceae. A number of species in this genus are known as "holly ferns". The genus was first published by Carl Ludwig von Blume in 1828, with the single Indonesian species Arachniodes aspidioides.
The East India holly fern is an evergreen creeper that spreads by means of slowly spreading rhizomes. Clumps of the fern are usually 16 to 24 inches tall with the leaves leathery and three times divided. In this species, the three basal pinnae pairs are significantly larger than those at the tip of the frond. The variegation pattern is a one-quarter inch band of yellow running the central stem (rachis) of the frond and major subdivisions. Ferns are a joy to grow, but a challenging group of plants to learn. Most are built on a very similar body plan and they look an awful lot alike. Without flowers, botanists have relied primarily on the shape of the spore-bearing bodies (the sori) on the underside of the frond and the sporangia, the balloon-like structures produced in the sorus that actually generate the nearly invisible spores.
