Monachosorella Hayata; Ptilopteris Hance.

Rhizome shortly creeping or ascending, dictyostelic, clothed with minute, few-celled, cylindrical, glandular hairs, these hairs also on foliar parts; scales absent. Fronds 1-4-pinnate-pinnatifid, dark green to black, thinly herbaceous; rachis gemmiferous at tip, or bearing 1(-3) axillary buds on upper parts; buds large, consisting of a small rosette of fingerlike trophopods; veins free, ending well behind margin. Sori terminal or nearly so, small, orbicular, exindusiate; sporangia mixed with glandular paraphyses. Spores trilete, tetrahedral-globose, with prominent angles, irregularly tuberculate. n = 56.

Recent molecular phylogenetic studies indicate that Monachosoraceae are nested within Dennstaedtiaceae.

The chromosome number of Monachosorum maximowiczii with 2n = 112 is diploid, M. subdigitatum (Blume) Kuhn with 2n = 224 is tetraploid, M. flagellare with 2n = 336 is hexaploid, and M. arakii Tagawa with 2n = 336 is hexaploid and with irregular meiosis. A chromosome count for M. henryi is needed.

Six species: from the C Himalaya east to Japan and south to Java and New Guinea; three species in China.

(Authors: Zhang Xianchun (张宪春); Hans P. Nooteboom)