136.000 Cheilanthes Sw.

Rhizome erect or shortly creeping, with linear scales. Stipe dark reddish-brown to black, glabrous and glossy or pilose. Fronds 2-5-pinnatifid, uniform or rarely dimorphic, the pinnae and ultimate segments never articulated, glabrous, pubescent, pilose or tomentose, but never with coloured powdery undumentum on the underside. Sori small, discrete, borne on vein endings near the margins, or in soral lines, protected by a continuous or interrupted indusium or by the recurved lobes of the ultimate segments.

Worldwide: c.150-200 species, cosmopolitan.