136.800 Pellaea Link

Rhizome usually shortly creeping with linear, black or brown, scales. Stipe dark reddish-brown to black, glabrous or with hairs or scales. Fronds pinnate to 4-pinnate with pinnae or ultimate segments articulated, glabrous or pubescent to tomentose. Sori submarginal, confluent into a soral line (rarely discrete), usually covered by a continuous indusium formed from the reflexed margin; paraphyses usually 0.

Derivation of name: pellos: dark-coloured, an allusion to the dark or black stipe or leaf stalks of most species.

Worldwide: c. 35 species, tropical, with a few species occuring in temporate and boreal regions.

Zimbabwe: 8 taxa.