Plants terrestrial. Rhizome robust and short, erect or creeping, dictyostelic, covered with ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate scales. Fronds tufted or distant, dimorphic. Sterile lamina pinnatifid to bipinnatifid, green, deltoid-ovate, elliptic-lanceolate, or oblanceolate, papery or thinly papery; pinnae alternate, sessile or adnate, linear-lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, undulate or pinnatifid; pinnules hemielliptic-oblong, entire or subserrate with few teeth; veins free, pinnate or anastomosing, without included veinlets. Fertile lamina pinnate or bipinnate, elliptic to linear; pinnae or pinnules much inrolled, dull purple to dark brown, cylindric or globose; veins free, pinnate or furcate. Sori orbicular, indusiate or exindusiate; sporangia long stalked, annulus a longitudinal row consisting of 36-40 thick-walled cells; spores monolete, with perispore transparent, membranous, with a few folds.

The following taxon is excluded from the present treatment, pending further research: Struthiopteris cavaleriana Christ (Bull. Acad. Int. Géogr. Bot. 13: 118. 1904; Matteuccia cavaleriana (Christ) C. Christensen), type from China ("entre Pin-fa et Tou-Yunn").

Wu Shiew-hung. 1999. Onocleaceae. In: Wu Shiew-hung, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 4(2): 157-165.

Four genera and five species: temperate zone of the N Hemisphere and Mexico; three genera and four species in China.

(Authors: Xing Fuwu (邢福武), Wang Faguo (王发国); Masahiro Kato)