Cheilanthoideae is one of the five subfamilies of the fern family Pteridaceae.[1][2] The subfamily is understood to be monophyletic, but some of the genera as currently defined are not. Most species are xeric-adapted, and the subfamily is most diverse in dry areas.
Although subfamily Cheilanthoideae itself is thought to be monophyletic, many of the genera into which it has been divided (including Cheilanthes, Doryopteris, Notholaena, and Pellaea) have been shown to be polyphyletic.[4]
Genera
The following genera of Cheilanthoideae are recognized by the Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World, which incorporates the arrangements of the hemionitid ferns published in Schuettpelz et al. 2025.[5] That arrangement separated a number of genera from Cheilanthes s.l. and Pellaea s.l., and subsumed Mildella and Oeosporangium, formerly a Eurasian segregate of Cheilanthes, under Aleuritopteris.
Some other genera that have been included in the subfamily (or split off from genera included in the subfamily) are:[1][2][5]
AllosorusBernh. (nom. rej.) – not included by Christenhusz et al. (2011); accepted in PPG I. The type was subsequently discovered to belong to Cryptogramma and the name has been formally suppressed.
MickelopterisFraser-Jenk. – rendered unnecessary by conservation of Asplenium arifolium with a new type, now a synonym of Parahemionitis.
MildellaTrev. – subsumed in Aleuritopteris by Schuettpelz et al.
OeosporangiumVis. – considered a synonym of Allosorus in PPG I, subsequently accepted for a group of largely European species and then subsumed in Aleuritopteris by Schuettpelz et al.
PteridellaMett. ex Kuhn – accepted by Christenhusz & Chase (2014);[6] considered a synonym of Pellaeopsis by World Ferns.
SericopterisJing Zhao, X.M.Zhou & Z.R.He – published in 2025 to resolve the polyphyly of Paragymnopteris
Other sources take a radically different approach. As of October2025[update], Plants of the World Online places all of the possible genera of the Cheilanthoideae in the single genus Hemionitis.[7]
While much work remains to be done in delineating monophyletic genera in the cheilanthoids (Cheilanthes, Doryopteris and Pellaea remaining notably polyphyletic), several major clades have been consistently recovered in phylogenetic analyses and given informal names, as shown here:
↑Schuettpelz, Eric; Pryer, Kathleen M.; Ranker, Tom A. & Haufler, Christopher H. (2008). "Chapter 15 Fern phylogeny"(PDF). In Ranker, Tom A. & Haufler, Christopher H. (eds.). Biology and Evolution of Ferns and Lycophytes. Cambridge University Press. pp.417–467. ISBN978-0-521-87411-3. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
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