Rhizomes short, often trunk-like and erect, without scales. Sterile and fertile fronds similar or different. Fronds in several terminal crowns, oblong to ovate in outline, divided several times; veins free. Stalks with two leaf-like outgrowths at the base. Sporangia large, almost spherical, without indusia and not arranged into sori.

3 genera and c. 20 species, cosmopolitan (Australia 2 species).

Sporangia not arranged into sori but scattered on the undersurface of fronds, sometimes in spike-like heads.

Hewitson (1962).

Source: Spencer, R. (1995). Osmundaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 1, Ferns, conifers & their allies. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.