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.

Habit: Plant in soil or rock crevices; rhizome short-creeping-decumbent, scales lance-elongate, generally dark, with narrow, lighter margin or not. Leaf: +- alike or fertile, sterile +- dissimilar; axes grooved, light to dark brown; blade 3--4-pinnate, ovate-triangular to 5-sided, glabrous, adaxially +- glossy; pinnae long, narrow, tip pointed, sterile. Sporangia: in small clusters or continuous along margin; false indusia scarious, irregularly toothed.
Etymology: (Greek: shield-bearer, from shield-like false indusia in Aspidotis californica)
eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux