Common Name: CLIFF FERN FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb in rock crevices, occasionally in soil; rhizome generally short-creeping. Leaf: short-spaced, 5--40 cm, +- alike; stipe firm or fleshy (easily crushed), base darker or not, with 2 vascular strands; blade 1-pinnate to 2-pinnate-pinnately lobed, herbaceous, generally with hairs, hair-like scales, or gland-tipped hairs on axes, veins free, terminating before leaf margin; rachis, costa generally grooved adaxially. Sporangia: sori round; indusia of many segmented hair- or scale-like fragments or lobes encircling sorus from below [sphere-like].
Genera In Family: 1 genus, +- 35 species: worldwide, generally temperate. All species often treated in Woodsia (Shao et al. 2015 PLoS ONE 10; Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group 2016 J Syst Evol in press); four to six segregate genera could be recognized (Schmakov 2015 Turczaninowia 18:11--16). Note: A relatively isolated family within the broad eupolypods II clade (suborder Aspleniineae; Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group 2016 J Syst Evol in press), only distantly related to Cystopteridaceae or Athyriaceae, both often included here (Smith et al. 2016 Taxon 55:705--731).
eFlora Treatment Author: Carl J. Rothfels & Alan R. Smith
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin & Thomas J. Rosatti.