Plants terrestrial. Rhizome creeping, apex covered with dark, rigid bristles; bristles with a single row of cells at apex and a few rows of cells at base. Fronds monomorphic or dimorphic; stipes with 1, 2, or 4 vascular bundles near base, adaxially grooved; lamina simple or 1-pinnate, with terminal pinnae similar to lateral pinnae; pinnae simple, entire, thickly papery to leathery, glabrous; veins reticulate, areoles without included free veinlets. Sori linear and forming a narrow longitudinal band between midrib and margin, or borne irregularly along veins, or converging to orbicular or oblong sori, or in long inframarginal grooves, or acrostichoid on abaxial surface of contracted fertile pinnae, exindusiate; paraphyses abundant, multicellular. Spores trilete, tetrahedral-globose, with tubercles or rodlets. n = 44, 108, 110, 114.

The taxonomic state and position of this group has been disputed. Ching (Acta Phytotax. Sin. 16(3): 10. 1978) treated it as a monogeneric family and thought it related to Lindsaeaceae. In other later systems, it was treated as a genus related to Syngramma J. Smith within the Pteridaceae, a view accepted by Smith et al. (Taxon 55: 714-715. 2006) and Christenhusz et al. (Phytotaxa 19: 14. 2010).

The authors have not seen the type of Taenitis chinensis Desvaux (Mag. Neuesten Entdeck. Gesammten Naturk. Ges. Naturf. Freunde Berlin 5: 308. 1811). It was treated as a synonym of T. blechnoides in FRPS.

About 15 species: from Sri Lanka and S India to S China, through Malaysia and Indonesia to N Queensland and Fiji; one species in China.

(Authors: Dong Shiyong (董仕勇); Masahiro Kato)