DRYOPTERIDACEAE (Wood-fern Family)
Plants perennial, homosporous. Rhizomes erect to creeping, scaly. Leaves clustered
or closely spaced on the rhizome, sometimes dimorphic. Sporangia mostly
aggregated into circular to oblong sori on the undersurface of the leaf blades,
along the veins or at the tips of vein branches, usually with indusia, these
variously shaped, the annulus an interrupted, vertical ring of cells. Spores 32
or 64 per sporangium, monolete. Gametophytes green, flat, obcordate to
kidney-shaped, often with stalked glands. About 60 genera, about 3,000 species,
worldwide.
As presently circumscribed, the Dryopteridaceae are the largest temperate
family of ferns and include many of the larger, common woodland ferns that
occur in Missouri.