2. Araiostegia Copeland, Philipp. J. Sci. 34: 240. 1927.
小膜盖蕨属 xiao mo gai jue shu
Araiostegiella M. Kato & Tsutsumi.
Plants moderate-sized, epiphytic or growing on moss-covered rocks or old trunks. Rhizome long creeping, with a ring of 2 larger vascular bundles and 6-10 smaller ones, densely scaly; scales rufous, ovate to lanceolate, peltate, thin. Fronds remote or approximate; stipe purple or slightly purple, glabrous or scaly, with a ring of 2 large bundles and 4 smaller ones; lamina finely dissected, broadly ovate or narrowly ovate, deltoid, thinly papery, glabrous. Sori submarginal, small, terminal on veinlet; indusium small, membranous, semicircular or orbicular-reniform, attached only at base, long stalked; annulus longitudinal, consisting of 12-14 thickened cells; spores elliptic, translucent, usually without perispore. n = 10, (40).
About ten species: mostly in SW China, west to India and Myanmar; four species (one endemic) in China.
