4. PTERIDACEAE subfam. CHEILANTHOIDEAE
碎米蕨亚科 sui mi jue ya ke
Authors: Zhang Gangmin, George Yatskievych, Elisabeth A. Hooper & Tom A. Ranker
Plants terrestrial or on rocks, mostly medium-sized or small. Rhizomes erect or ascending to prostrate, caespitose to long creeping, siphonostelic, infrequently dictyostelic, with scales. Fronds monomorphic or rarely dimorphic, clustered to widely scattered. Stipe brown to black, with 1 or 2 vascular bundles near base, terete or adaxially grooved, glabrous, hairy, or scaly. Lamina variously shaped, 2-4-pinnate, sometimes also simple or pinnatifid, herbaceous to papery or leathery, glabrous or hairy, scaly, and/or farinose. Veins free, occasionally anastomosing (without included free veinlets). Sori submarginal at vein tips or along veins, variously shaped, discrete to confluent, sometimes along commissural vein connecting vein tips (Doryopteris). Indusia absent (Parahemionitis and Paragymnopteris) or more commonly present, then formed by reflexed and somewhat modified lamina margin (false indusium). Spores mostly brown, trilete, globose-tetrahedral to globose, perispore variously ornamented.
About 19 genera and ca. 500 species: worldwide, mainly in subtropical areas; seven genera and 56 species (24 endemic) in China.
Molecular data have shown that the cheilanthoid ferns form a well-defined monophyletic group, Cheilanthoideae, within Pteridaceae. In FRPS, this fern group was separated into two different families, Sinopteridaceae and Hemionitidaceae.
