Adiantum

Perennial. Rhizome creeping or erect, covered with scales, bristles or woolly hairs. Fronds tufted or separated, usually small. Stipe stiff, polished dark red-brown or black, scaly at base, sometimes hairy above. Lamina 1–4-pinnate, thin, glabrous or very sparsely hairy (in Australian species); pinnae more or less fan-shaped, often asymmetric at base, membranous or coriaceaous; veins radiating outwards, repeatedly forked, free, without main vein. Sori oblong or reniform, marginal, covered by strongly recurved marginal lobes.