Woodwardia Sm.

Plants terrestrial. Stems dictyostelic, short-creeping to suberect, > 1 cm diam., covered apically with a dense indument of large, lax, brownish to orangish acute scales. Stipes neither swollen nor aerenchymatous, stramineous to reddish brown, lustrous with a dense coat of cordate, acute-tipped orangish to stramineous scales; vascular bundles 5(-7), with two large adaxial bundles and an arc of 3(-5) smaller bundles arranged in an abaxial arc; trophopods present. Fronds monomorphic, densely clustered along the stem, weakly to strongly anthocyanic, rhachises and costae generally grooved, the grooves of the rhachis discontinuous with those of the costae, pinnae not articulate to rhachis; venation catadromous to pseudoanadromous, anastomosing in both trophophylls and sporophylls to form a row of ± regularly quadrilateral anastomoses immediately adjacent to and parallel with the major axes of the laminae (‘primary areoles’), irregularly anastomosing exterior of the primary areoles to form one or more ranks of smaller, irregularly shaped triangular to polygonal anastomoses (‘secondary areoles’) oriented at an angle to the primary areoles and major axes of the laminae, the veins terminating freely at or near the laminar margin. Laminae ± coriaceous, wintergreen, weakly to strongly anthocyanic, and serrulate along the margin, capitate glands present; pinnatifid to pinnate-pinnatifid; pinnae not articulate to rhachis, deltate to narrowly ovate, variable in length, and alternate to subopposite. Sori discrete, variable in shape and length, superficial to deeply immersed, present along the primary areoles of rhachis, costae and/or costules; indusia linear, membranous to strongly cartilaginous, attached to the exterior vein segment of the primary areole; annuli with 18-24 cells. Perispore fragile, tightly appressed over the exospore, forming reticulum of numerous sharp ridges, the surfaces between the ridges variously ornamented.