Athyriaceae

Medium to large tufted deciduous ferns with large rootstocks, leaves light green and twice to thrice-divided or nearly so, spore-producing structures (sori) longer than broad, curved (like commas or eyebrows) or straight, borne along the veins on the underside of leaflets between their midrib and margin.

Sori covered by a membrane (indusium) that is attached along one side, and may be curved, horseshoe-shaped, and brown or silvery at maturity.

Light green leaflets often long-tapering, their segments or divisions often toothed, and blunt to pointed at their tips. Leaflets in fertile leaves somewhat narrower than in sterile ones. Leaflet veins free, simple or forked, extending to the edges. Leaf stalk scaly, the scales narrow, fragile and hair-like or broader and brown.

Underground stem (rhizome) stout, scaly and studded with old swollen starch-filled leaf stalk bases, short-creeping to erect, with clusters of leaves arising from their tips.