Description Terrestrial ferns. Rhizome usually short and stout, sometimes creeping and slender; scales thin, light brown, brown, black to shiny black, lanceolate or ovate; stipes with 2 vascular strands at base and uniting into a single U- or V-shaped strand above. Lamina usually thin, pinnate to decompound (tripinnate), rarely simple (one species in Taiwan); veins usually free, goniopteroid in two species, and forming areolae in two species; some species bearing multicellular hairs; adaxial rachis groove generally open to receive costae grooves but not in all genera (Deparia). Sori linear, single or double, J-shaped, reniform or round. Indusia usually present, sometimes small and fugacious or absent.
The classification as shown here is strongly supported by genetic evidence.
The Athyriaceae and the Blechnaceae are especially close, as are the Onocleaceae and Woodsiaceae.
This order includes some important ferns, including the Sensitive fern, Onoclea sensibilis, which grows as a virtual weed throughout much of its temperate North American range, and ferns of the genus Thelypteris, a genus that has shown remarkable speciation.
Feeds |
Contact