Common Name: BRAKE FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, in soil or on or among rocks; rhizome creeping to erect, scaly. Leaf: generally all +- alike (or of 2 kinds, fertile, sterile), generally < 50 cm, often < 25 cm; stipe generally thin, wiry, often dark, ×-section with vascular strands generally 1--3, less often many in circle; blade generally pinnate or +- palmate-pinnate (see Adiantum), often >= 2-compound, abaxially often with glands, +- powdery exudate, hairs, or scales; segments round, oblong, fan-shaped, or other, veins generally free. Sporangia: in sori or not, marginal, submarginal, or along veins, covered by recurved, often modified segment margins (false indusia) or not; true indusia 0; spores spheric, sides flat or not, scar with 3 radiating branches.
Genera In Family: +- 40 genera, 500 species: worldwide, especially dry areas. Note: CA members of Cheilanthes moved to the distantly related Myriopteris; Pellaea breweri to be moved as well, from a to-be-redefined Pellaea; traditional, often untenable limits of genera outside CA also being clarified using molecular phylogenetics.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Alan R. Smith, Thomas J. Rosatti.

Common Name: CLIFF-BRAKE
Habit: Plant in soil or rock crevices; rhizome short- to long-creeping, scales overlapped, narrowly linear, light- to red- or medium-brown, often with dark mid-stripe. Leaf: erect, persistent, < 1 m; stipes +- cylindric, generally dark or red-brown to +- black, +- shiny, glabrous; blade 1--4-pinnate; segments generally stalked, generally free, linear to rounded, lobed or not, often folded lengthwise when dried; veins generally free. Sporangia: in +- continuous, submarginal bands, among a +- white to +- yellow exudate or not; segment margin generally recurved, generally modified; spores tan to light yellow.
Etymology: (Greek: dusky, from blue-gray leaves) Note: Occasionally cultivated. Molecular data suggest Pellaea in the sense of Tryon (1957) is polyphyletic with monophyletic Astrolepis and Pellaea sect. Platyloma, as well as elements of Paragymnopteris and Paraceterach nested within (Kirkpatrick, 2007).
eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith, Thomas Lemieux & Edward Alverson
Reference: Kirkpatrick 2007 Syst Bot 32:504--518
Unabridged Reference: Kirkpatrick, R.E.B. 2007. Investigating the monophyly of Pellaea (Pteridaceae) in the context of a phylogenetic analysis of cheilanthoid ferns. Syst Bot 32:504--518; Tryon 1957 Ann Missouri Bot Gard 44(2):125--193

Common Name: BIRD'S-FOOT FERN
Habit: Rhizome short-creeping, branched, > 8 cm, 0.5--1 cm wide; scales +- brown, mid-stripe dark. Leaf: +- clustered, +- green to +- purple; stipe < 2(3) mm wide; blade 2--3(4)-pinnate, narrowly triangular to oblong; segments 2--6(8) mm, 0.5--2(4) mm wide, linear to oblong, with mucro. Sporangia: 64-spored. Chromosomes: 2n=58.