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, scales lance-linear, tan to +- red. Leaf: < 40 cm; hairs 0; scales 0; stipe cylindric, dark, glabrous or +- scaly at base; blade 2--5-pinnate, segments stalked, generally < 5 mm, round to oblong, blue- to gray-green, generally thick, veins obscure; axes, blades covered with +- white exudate abaxially or not. Sporangia: along veins for outer 1/3--2/3 of segments; segment margin unmodified, often only +- recurved; spores tan, coarsely ridged.
Etymology: (Greek: silver ornament) Note: Closer to Pellaea than to Notholaena.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ruth E.B. Kirkpatrick, Alan R. Smith & Thomas Lemieux
Unabridged Reference: Windham 1987 Amer Fern J 77:37--41