Plants terrestrial, rarely climbing or epiphytic. Rhizomes creeping, sometimes scandent, protostelic or solenostelic, covered with narrow scales and/or hairs; scales basifixed, glabrous, 2-6(-12) cells wide at base, cells thick-walled, scale margin entire, apex bristlelike, ca. 1 cell wide. Fronds approximate or distant, vernation circinate; stipe not articulate to rhizome, with a single vascular bundle; lamina 1-4-pinnate, rarely simple, imparipinnate or not, herbaceous, papery, or thinly leathery, glabrous or with scattered very minute (microscopic) 2-celled hairs; pinnae or pinnules symmetrical or dimidiate, anadromous, rarely catadromous; veins free or anastomosing without included veinlets. Sori marginal or submarginal, terminal on a single veinlet or on 2 to several uniting veinlets, linear or oblong, indusiate; indusia basally adnate, laterally free or adnate, opening toward margin. Spores 32 per sporangium, tetrahedral-globose, globose, or ellipsoid, trilete or monolete.

Ching Ren-chang, Fu Shu-hsia, Wang Chu-hao & Shing Gung-hsia. 1959. Lindsaeaceae (excluding Taenitis). In: Ching Ren-chang, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 2: 256-279, 371-374.

Six to nine genera and ca. 200 species: pantropical; four genera and 18 species (one endemic) in China.

(Authors: Dong Shiyong (董仕勇); Lin Sujuan (林苏娟), Maarten J. M. Christenhusz, Julie Barcelona)