Cassebeera Kaulfuss, nom. rej.

Plants terrestrial or on rocks. Rhizomes shortly creeping to ascending or erect, compact; scales lanceolate to narrowly ovate, mostly bicolorous, with a dark brown, non-clathrate, central band and lighter brown margins. Fronds ± clustered, monomorphic to somewhat dimorphic, fertile fronds sometimes with longer stipes and more finely divided laminae than sterile ones. Stipe longer than to ± as long as lamina, shiny, reddish brown to black, rounded or grooved adaxially, with 1 or 2 vascular bundles at base, scaly at base, glabrescent or with sparse, short hairs. Lamina mostly pedately 1-3 times lobed or pinnatifid, in a few species pinnate, trilobate, or entire, pentagonal to broadly cordate, hastate, sagittate, or ovate in outline, margins entire to weakly crenulate, often with a white, brown, or black cartilaginous border, papery to leathery, glabrous on both surfaces or rarely sparsely glandular hairy and/or scaly abaxially at base, in some species with a proliferous bud at base, midvein and costae reddish brown to blackish abaxially. Veins faint, free or anastomosing, those of fertile fronds connected to a marginal commissural vein, those of sterile fronds free near margins, slightly to noticeably enlarged, then ending in submarginal, adaxial hydathodes. Sori with numerous sporangia continuous along commissural vein, margin of false indusium entire to slightly erose. False indusia formed by reflexed lamina margins, usually continuous except at segment tips. Spores yellow to brown, globose to globose-tetrahedral, rugulate or echinate to cristate. x = 29, 30.

About 35 species: Africa, Asia, Australia, North and South America; one species in China.

(Authors: Zhang Gangmin (张钢民); George Yatskievych)