Plants terrestrial. Stems branched, slender; fronds often more than several meters, alternately pinnate, climbing by means of a twining rachis; primary blade divisions (pinnae) pseudodichotomously forking with a dormant apical bud in axils; pinnules entire to palmately or 1- or 2-pinnate or more divided; fertile and sterile pinnae similar or fertile pinnae greatly contracted; veins free or anastomosing; sori on lobes of ultimate segments; sporangia abaxial, solitary, 1 per sorus, each sporangium covered by an antrorse indusium-like subtending flange; spores 128-256 per sporangium, tetrahedral and trilete; gametophytes green, cordate, terrestrial. x = 29, 30.

Ching Ren-chang, Fu Shu-hsia, Wang Chu-hao & Shing Gung-hsia. 1959. Lygodiaceae. In: Ching Ren-chang, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 2: 105-114, 345-346.

One genus and ca. 26 species: pantropical, extending northward to S Korea, Japan, and North America and southward to S Africa and New Zealand; nine species in China.

(Authors: Zhang Xianchun (张宪春); Judith Garrison Hanks)