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.

Habit: Rhizome short-creeping. Leaf: of 2 kinds, fertile > sterile, with much narrower pinnae or lobes; adjacent pinnae fused at their junction with rachis, lower pinnae gradually reduced; veins of sterile leaves free.
Etymology: (Latin/Greek: ostrich fern) Note: Struthiopteris is relatively isolated in Blechnaceae, more closely related to the monotypic genera Blechnidium and (possibly) Brainea than to Blechnum (de Gaspar et al. 2016 Cladistics in press).
eFlora Treatment Author: Carl J. Rothfels, John C. Game, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux