Dryopteridaceae

Abstract

The Dryopteridaceae, in the order of Polypodiales, is a family of fern, consisting of around 20 genera with about 1700 species, cosmopolitan distributed, mainly in temperate or subtropical regions in Asia. Plants are medium-sized, terrestrial, epilithic, hemiepiphytic or epiphytic, evergreen or deciduous. Rhizomes are robust, short, erect, occasionally creeping, dictyostelic, densely scaly. Scales are large, versatile shapes, texture various, reddish brown or brown, sometimes black, entire or ciliate. Fronds are caespitose, sometimes proximate, stipes with many vascular bundles, clothed scales similar to rhizomes. Fronds are 1–4-pinnate, occasionally solitary, papery or leathery, rarely herbaceous, green adaxially, pale green abaxially, often clothed scales. Rachis, pinnae rachis, and main veins are rounded bulge, usually clothed scales or with fibrous palea, deeply grooved adaxially, smooth, margins thickened bilateral grooves, often broken on the positions of rachis, pinnae rachis and pinnule rachis, longitudinal grooves confluence upper, while decurrent lateral beneath in sharp angles on the positions of rachis and pinnae rachis. Veins are free, uniform or bifurcate, or forming reticulate meshes, with an inflated aqueous capsule on veinlet apex, but not reaching to frond margins. Sori are orbicular, dorsifixed or on top of veinlets. Indusia are orbicular-reniform, adhering in narrow notches, or rounded, adhering in central peltate. Spores are ellipsoid or oblong, monolete, perispore wrinkle, usually lobate or tuberculate. Three species, belonging to two different genera, are illustrated in the chapter.