Common Name: DEER FERN FAMILY
Habit: Plants in soil [climbing]; rhizome short- to long-creeping to erect, scaly; new growth often +- red. Leaf: of 1 or 2 kinds, fertile, sterile; stipe in ×-section with vascular strands in circle; blade [(simple or 2-pinnate)] deeply pinnately lobed to 1-pinnate, pinnae deeply pinnately lobed or not, hairs generally 0; veins free or netted. Sporangia: sori linear to oblong, along veins parallel to nearest midrib; indusium shaped +- like sorus, opening towards nearest midrib; stalk cells in 2--3 rows; spores elliptic, scar linear.
Genera In Family: 24 genera, +- 250 species: worldwide, especially tropics; several species cultivated. Note: Until recently, most species usually treated in an extremely morphologically heterogeneous Blechnum, with some species more closely related to other genera (such as Brainea, Doodia, Sadleria) than to other species of Blechnum.
eFlora Treatment Author: Carl J. Rothfels, John C. Game, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, Alan R. Smith, Thomas J. Rosatti.

Common Name: CHAIN FERN
Habit: Rhizome prostrate to ascending; scales dense, orange-brown. Leaf: all alike, lower pinnae generally slightly reduced or not; veins of sterile leaves netted but free at margin. Sporangia: sori oblong.
Etymology: (T.J. Woodward, British phycologist, 1745--1820) Note: "Woodwardioid" ferns are an outlying (sister) lineage to the rest of Blechnaceae, and often all treated in Woodwardia. Recent treatments recognize the two most distantly related species of eastern North America as Anchistea and Lorinseria (Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group 1 2016 J Syst Evol in press; de Gaspar et al. 2016 Phytotaxa 275: 191--227).
eFlora Treatment Author: John C. Game, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux