English: Wood ferns.
Synonym: Aspidiaceae; Bolbitidaceae; Elaphoglossaceae;
Hypodematiaceae; Peranemataceae.
Clades: Dryopteridales;
Polypodiidae;
Polypodianae;
Pteridophyta;
Plants.
Genera: 1700 species.
Region: cosmopolitan distribution.
Use: many ornamentals.
BotanyFerns; leptosporangiate.
Root: rhizomes are often stout, creeping, ascending, or erect, sometimes scandent or climbing; with nonclathrate scales at apices.
Leaves: usually monomorphic, sometimes dimorphic; sometimes scaly or glandular, less commonly hairy; petioles have numerous round, vascular bundles arranged in a ring, rarely three; adaxial bundles are largest; veins are pinnate or forking, free to variously anastomosing; areoles occur with or without included veinlets.
Sori: usually round; acrostichoid, = covering the entire abaxial surface of the lamina, in a few lineages; usually indusiate, sometimes exindusiate; indusia round-reniform or peltate; sporangia have three-rowed, short to long stalks.
Spores: reniform, monolete, perine or winged.
GeneraAcrophorus, Acrorumohra, Arachniodes, Arthrobotrya, Bolbitis, Coveniella, Ctenitis, Cyclodium, Cyrtogonellum, Cyrtomidictyum, Cyrtomium, Diacalpe, Dryopolystichum, Dryopsis, Dryopteris, Elaphoglossum, Lastreopsis, Leptorumohra, Lithostegia, Lomagramma, Maxonia, Megalastrum, Mickelia, Olfersia, Parapolystichum, Peranema, Phanerophlebia, Pleocnemia, Polybotrya, Polystichopsis, Polystichum, Pseudotectaria, Rumohra, Stenolepia, Stigmatopteris, Tectaridium, Teratophyllum.
TaxonomyThe Pteridophyte
Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 placed
Dryopteridaceae in the suborder Polypodiineae, also named Eupolypods I. Alternatively, it may be treated as the subfamily
Dryopteridoideae of a very broadly defined family
Polypodiaceae.
Karl Kramer defined
Dryopteridaceae broadly to include the present family, as well as the
Woodsiaceae,
Onocleaceae and most of
Tectariaceae. Molecular phylogenetic studies found Kramer's version to be polyphyletic. It was split up by Smith and others in 2006. The inclusion of Didymochlaena, Hypodematium, and Leucostegia in the
Dryopteridaceae is doubtful, as with exclusion of them then
Dryopteridaceae is strongly monophyletic.
Phylogenetic studies in 2007 showed that Pleocnemia should be transferred from the
Tectariaceae to the
Dryopteridaceae. In 2010 Arthrobotrya was resurrected from Teratophyllum. Later that year, Mickelia was described as a new genus.
Some species have been removed from the genus Oenotrichia and probably belong in the
Dryopteridaceae, but not yet given a generic name.
In 2012, a phylogenetic study of Dryopteris and its relatives included Acrophorus, Acrorumohra, Diacalpe, Dryopsis, Nothoperanema, and Peranema within that genus. The Flora of China treatment of the family placed Lithostegia and Phanerophlebiopsis into Arachniodes.
In 2014 Christenhusz and Chase defined
Dryopteridaceae as subfamily
Dryopteridoideae ion the family
Polypodiaceae, also named Eupolypods 1.