Belongs within: Leptosporangiatae.
The Gleicheniaceae are a family of ferns with distinctive forked fronds. They are found in tropical or subtropical habitats. Species of Gleichenia (in the strict sense) have fronds with the final pinnules not over four millimetres long (Allan 1961).
Characters (from Naumann 1993): Plants coarse, terrestrial. Stems long-creeping, forked, stele protostelic (a solid rod of vascular tissue with phloem surrounding xylem), covered with scales or hairs. Leaves monomorphic, large, scrambling or trailing, one to many times forked. Petiole not articulate to stem, with pair of opposite pinnae and arrested bud at apex, or rachis continuing and producing two or more pairs of opposite pinnae. Pinnae one to several times forked, with arrested bud at each fork; indument of simple, branched, or stellate hairs (or scales). Veins free, one- to four-forked. Sori round, indusia absent. Sporangia two to many on slightly elevated receptacle, sessile to subsessile; annulus complete, transverse, medial, longitudinally dehiscent; spores 120-800 per sporangium. Spores all alike, whitish to yellowish, bilateral to globose, monolete or trilete, generally smooth without elaborately ornamented surface. Gametophyte borne above ground, green, obcordate to elongate.
<==Gleicheniaceae [Gleicheniales]
|--+--DiplopterygiumSP09
| | |--D. bancroftiiSP09
| | `--D. glaucum [incl. Gleichenia japonica]PS01
| `--+--Gleichenella pectinataSP09
| `--Dicranopteris Bernhardi 1806SP09, A61
| |--D. flexuosaL54
| `--D. linearis (Burmann) Underwood 1907I88 (see below for synonymy)
| |--D. l. var. linearisI88
| `--D. l. var. montana Holtt. 1957 [incl. D. warburgii (Christ) Nakai 1950]I88
`--+--Sticherus Presl 1836SP09, A61
| |--S. bifidusSP09 [=Dicranopteris bifidaL54]
| |--S. cunninghamii (Heward) Ching 1940 [=Gleichenia cunninghamii Heward ex Hooker 1844]A61
| |--S. flabellatus (Brown) St John 1942 [=Gleichenia flabellata Brown 1810; incl. G. littoralis Col. 1884]A61
| |--S. lobatusH90
| |--S. palmatusWP05
| `--S. tenerH90 [=Gleichenia flabellata var. teneraB78]
`--+--+--Stromatopteris moniliformisSP09
| `--BoodlepterisSP09
`--Gleichenia Smith 1793SP09, A61
|--G. bifidaJ87
|--G. chaloneri Herendeen & Skog 1998P-FD12
|--G. ciliata Col. 1897 (n. d.)A61
|--G. circinata Swartz 1806A61 (see below for synonymy)
|--G. cryptocarpaM03
|--G. dicarpa Brown 1810CD07
| |--G. d. var. dicarpaT-W89
| `--G. d. var. vulcanicaT-W89
|--G. flagellarisT-W89
|--G. gigantea Wallich ex Hooker & Bauer 1840I88
|--G. glaucaBS-V28
|--G. microphylla Br. 1810 (see below for synonymy)A61
|--G. norrisiiT-W89
|--‘Onoclea’ polypodioidesV97
|--G. quadripartita [incl. G. acutifolia]M03
|--G. revolutaJ87
`--G. rupestrisH90
Gleicheniaceae incertae sedis:
Gleichenipteris antarcticusKTT04
HicriopterisC49
Gleicheniidites senonicus Ross 1949P-FD12
Ornamentifera peregrina (Bolchovitina 1953) Bolchovitina 1968P-FD12
Gleichenites repenningi Brown 1956B56
Chansitheca kidstonii Halle 1927C93
Wingatea plumosa (Daugherty) Ash 1969C93
Oligocarpia Göppert 1841SS04, C93
|--O. brongniartii Stur 1883C93
|--O. leptophyllaRDS03
|--O. permiana Fefilova 1973C93
`--O. splendensA38
Dicranopteris linearis (Burmann) Underwood 1907I88 [=Polypodium lineare Burmann 1768I88, Gleichenia linearis (Burmann) Clarke 1880I88; incl. Polypodium dichotomum Thunb. 1784A61, G. dichotomaI88, Mertensia dichotoma Willd. 1804A61, G. hermanniC06, G. lanigera Don 1825I88]
Gleichenia circinata Swartz 1806A61 [incl. G. alpina Br. 1810A61, G. circinata var. alpina (Hook. f.) Cheeseman 1906A61, G. dicarpa var. alpina Hook. f. 1858A61, G. hecistophylla Cunn. 1837A61, G. circinata var. hecistophylla Hook. f. 1864A61, G. dicarpa var. hecistophylla (Cunn.) Cheeseman 1906C06, G. semi-vestita var. hecistophylla Hook. f. 1855A61, G. speluncaeC06]
Gleichenia microphylla Br. 1810 [incl. G. punctulata Col. 1884, G. patens Col. 1899, G. semi-vestita Labill. 1824]A61
*Type species of generic name indicated
References
[A61] Allan, H. H. 1961. Flora of New Zealand vol. 1. Indigenous Tracheophyta: Psilopsida, Lycopsida, Filicopsida, Gymnospermae, Dicotyledones. R. E. Owen, Government Printer: Wellington (New Zealand).
[B78] Bentham, G. 1878. Flora Australiensis: A description of the plants of the Australian Territory vol. 7. Roxburghiaceae to Filices. L. Reeve & Co.: London.
[BS-V28] Bory de Saint-Vincent, J. B. 1828. Voyage Autour du Monde, Exécuté par Ordre du Roi, Sur la Corvette de Sa Majesté, La Coquille, pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825. Botanique. Cryptogamie. Arthus Bertrand: Paris.
[B56] Brown, R. W. 1956. New items in Cretaceous and Tertiary floras of the western United States. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 46 (4): 104–108.
[CD07] Cantino, P. D., J. A. Doyle, S. W. Graham, W. S. Judd, R. G. Olmstead, D. E. Soltis, P. S. Soltis & M. J. Donoghue. 2007. Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Tracheophyta. Taxon 56 (3): E1–E44.
[C06] Cheeseman, T. F. 1906. Manual of the New Zealand Flora. John Mackay, Government Printer: Wellington.
[C93] Cleal, C. J. 1993. Pteridophyta. In: Benton, M. J. (ed.) The Fossil Record 2 pp. 779–794. Chapman & Hall: London.
[C49] Crookes, M. W. 1949. A revised and annotated list of New Zealand Filicinae. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 77 (2): 209–225.
[H90] Harden, G. J. (ed.) 1990. Flora of New South Wales vol. 1. New South Wales University Press.
[I88] Iwatsuki, K. 1988. An enumeration of the pteridophytes of Nepal. In: Ohba, H., & S. B. Malla (eds) The Himalayan Plants vol. 1. The University Museum, University of Tokyo, Bulletin 31: 231–339.
[J87] Judd, W. S. 1987. Floristic study of Morne La Visite and Pic Macaya National Parks, Haiti. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum—Biological Sciences 32 (1): 1–136.
[KTT04] Klavins, S. D., T. N. Taylor & E. L. Taylor. 2004. Matoniaceous ferns (Gleicheniales) from the Middle Triassic of Antactica. Journal of Paleontology 78 (1): 211–217.
[L54] Lötschert, W. 1954. Beitrag zur Pteridophyten-Flora von Mittel-Amerika. Senckenbergiana Biologica 35 (1–2): 109–119.
[M03] Macloskie, G. 1903. Pteridophyta, ferns and fernlike plants. In: Scott, W. B. (ed.) Reports of the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia, 1896–1899 vol. 8. Botany pp. 127–138. The University: Princeton (New Jersey).
[P-FD12] Pérez-de la Fuente, R., X. Delclòs, E. Peñalver, M. Speranza, J. Wierzchos, C. Ascaso & M. S. Engel. 2012. Early evolution and ecology of camouflage in insects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 109 (52): 21414–21419.
[PS01] Pryer, K. M., A. R. Smith, J. S. Hunt & J. Y. Dubuisson. 2001. rbcL data reveal two monophyletic groups of filmy ferns (Filicopsida: Hymenophyllaceae). American Journal of Botany 88 (6): 1118–1130.
[RDS03] Rössler, R., J. A. Dunlop & J. W. Schneider. 2003. A redescription of some poorly known Rotliegend arachnids from the Lower Permian (Asselian) of the Ilfeld and Thuringian Forest Basins, Germany. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 77 (2): 417–427.
[SP09] Schuettpelz, E., & K. M. Pryer. 2009. Evidence for a Cenozoic radiation of ferns in an angiosperm-dominated canopy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106 (27): 11200–11205.
[T-W89] Tenison-Woods, J. E. 1889. On the vegetation of Malaysia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, series 2, 4 (1): 9–106, pls 1–9.
[V97] Ventenat, C. 1797. Extrait d’un mémoire sur les fougeres, de M. Smith. Bulletin des Sciences, par la Societé Philomathique de Paris 1 (9): 71–72.
[WP05] Wikström, N., & K. M. Pryer. 2005. Incongruence between primary sequence data and the distribution of a mitochondrial atp1 group II intron among ferns and horsetails. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 36: 484–493.