Dryopteridaceae
English: Wood ferns.
Synonyms: Aspidiaceae; Bolbitidaceae; Elaphoglossaceae; Hypodematiaceae; Peranemataceae.
Clades: Dryopteridales; Polypodiidae; Polypodiopsida; Pteridophyta; Plants.
Genera: 1700 species.
Region: cosmopolitan distribution.
Use: many ornamentals.
Botany
Ferns; leptosporangiate.
Root: rhizomes are often stout, creeping, ascending, or erect, sometimes scandent or climbing; with nonclathrate scales at apices.
Leaves: usually monomorphic, sometimes dimorphic; sometimes scaly or glandular, less commonly hairy; petioles have numerous round, vascular bundles arranged in a ring, rarely three; adaxial bundles are largest; veins are pinnate or forking, free to variously anastomosing; areoles occur with or without included veinlets.
Sori: usually round; acrostichoid, = covering the entire abaxial surface of the lamina, in a few lineages; usually indusiate, sometimes exindusiate; indusia round-reniform or peltate; sporangia have three-rowed, short to long stalks.
Spores: reniform, monolete, perine or winged.
Genera
Acrophorus, Acrorumohra, Arachniodes, Arthrobotrya, Bolbitis, Coveniella, Ctenitis, Cyclodium, Cyrtogonellum, Cyrtomidictyum, Cyrtomium, Diacalpe, Dryopolystichum, Dryopsis, Dryopteris, Elaphoglossum, Lastreopsis, Leptorumohra, Lithostegia, Lomagramma, Maxonia, Megalastrum, Mickelia, Olfersia, Parapolystichum, Peranema, Phanerophlebia, Pleocnemia, Polybotrya, Polystichopsis, Polystichum, Pseudotectaria, Rumohra, Stenolepia, Stigmatopteris, Tectaridium, Teratophyllum.
Taxonomy
The Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 placed Dryopteridaceae in the suborder Polypodiineae, also named Eupolypods I. Alternatively, it may be treated as the subfamily Dryopteridoideae of a very broadly defined family Polypodiaceae.
Karl Kramer defined Dryopteridaceae broadly to include the present family, as well as the Woodsiaceae, Onocleaceae and most of Tectariaceae. Molecular phylogenetic studies found Kramer's version to be polyphyletic,. It was split up by Smith and others in 2006. The inclusion of Didymochlaena, Hypodematium, and Leucostegia in the Dryopteridaceae is doubtful, as with exclusion of them then Dryopteridaceae is strongly monophyletic.
Phylogenetic studies in 2007 showed that Pleocnemia should be transferred from the Tectariaceae to the Dryopteridaceae. In 2010 Arthrobotrya was resurrected from Teratophyllum. Later that year, Mickelia was described as a new genus.
Some species have been removed from the genus Oenotrichia and probably belong in the Dryopteridaceae, but not yet given a generic name.
In 2012, a phylogenetic study of Dryopteris and its relatives included Acrophorus, Acrorumohra, Diacalpe, Dryopsis, Nothoperanema, and Peranema within that genus. The Flora of China treatment of the family placed Lithostegia and Phanerophlebiopsis into Arachniodes.
In 2014 Christenhusz and Chase defined Dryopteridaceae as subfamily Dryopteridoideae ion the family Polypodiaceae, also named Eupolypods 1.