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: BRAKE
Habit: Plant generally in soil; rhizome erect or short- to long-creeping, scaly or hairy. Leaf: generally alike, 1--4-pinnate, erect-arched; stipe, axes grooved adaxially, grooves from rachis to costa connected; pinnules on basal side of lowermost pinnae more developed (except Pteris vittata). Sporangia: among hair-like structures in continuous, marginal bands; false indusia along segment margins except at bases, tips, and between lobes, partly covering sporangia, scarious.
Etymology: (Greek: feather, for pinnae, or ancient name for ferns in general) Note: Popular in cultivation.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith, Thomas Lemieux & Edward Alverson