Thelypteris sect. Macrothelypteris H. Itô in Nakai & Honda, Nov. Fl. Jap. 4: 141. 1939.

Plants medium-sized, terrestrial, sometimes treelike, to 4 m tall. Rhizomes thick and short, erect, ascending or decumbent, with brown lanceolate long scales; scales thick, with acicular cilia along margins. Fronds clustered; stipes stramineous or reddish brown, glabrous, or with similar scales and after fallen with remaining lunate marks; laminae large, ovate-triangular, 3- or 4-pinnate-pinnatifid; pinnae and pinnules oblique or spreading and connected to each other by narrow wings along costae or costules; veins pinnate, free, lateral veins simple, sometimes forked. Laminae herbaceous or somewhat papery, yellowish green when dry, costae and costules rounded and raised adaxially, ± hairy on both sides and intercostal areas, rarely glabrous, hairs slender, grayish white acicular, unicellular or consisting of several cells, except above hairs along rachises, usually also with brown multicellular acicular thick hairs and few lanceolate or subulate thick scales and remaining protruding marks after scales fallen. Sori small, attached near ends of veinlets, exindusiate or with small and usually deciduous indusia; sporangia sometimes with shortly stalked capitate hairs near annuli. Spores bilateral, elliptic-reniform; perispores transparent and corrugate, echinate or minutely foveolate; exospore finely reticulate. x = 31.

About ten species: warmer parts of mainland Asia, NE Australia, Malesia, Pacific islands; seven species (one endemic) in China.

(Authors: Lin Youxing (林尤兴); Kunio Iwatsuki)