Plants small, usually epilithic. Rhizomes short, erect or ascending, rarely decumbent, scaly; scales lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, membranous. Fronds clustered; stipe shorter than lamina, articulate at various levels, i.e., from top to near base, or continuous in some species; lamina 1-pinnate or 1-pinnate-pinnatifid, lanceolate, herbaceous or subpapery, usually with articulate hairs or scales, rarely glabrous, base gradually tapering. Veins free, pinnate, not reaching laminar margin. Sori small, consisting of 3-18 sporangia, orbicular, on veinlets or at veinlet tips; indusia inferior, various, usually saucer- to cup-shaped, dissected into ciliate platelike segments or reduced into curly, multicellular hairs, sometimes exindusiate. Spores ellipsoid, monolete, perispore folded with granular, echinate or tuberculate ornamentations on surface. x = 39, 41.

The following taxon is excluded from the present treatment, pending further research: Woodsia shennongensis D. S. Jiang & D. M. Chen (J. Hunan Agric. Univ. 26(2): 88. 2000), described from Hubei (Shennongjia).

About 38 species: widely distributed in N temperate regions and higher elevations of tropical America, Africa, and Madagascar; 20 species (eight endemic) in China.