Plants small to medium-sized, filmy, epiphytic or terrestrial. Rhizomes long-creeping. Fronds spreading, up to 60 em long. Blades 1- to 3-pinnate, margins crenate to dentate. Sori sessile to short-stalked. Indusia narrowly conical, with or without flaring tips, with single, central hairlike structures bearing sporangia.

A cosmopolitan genus with around twenty to thirty species, found throughout the Tropics and subtropics in South Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and New Zealand. Scattered elsewhere. Represented in Hawai 'i by four endemic species.

Some authors include Vandenboschia in the larger genus Trichomanes L.; others include it in Crepidomanes C. Presl. Copeland's treatment (1938) is being followed here.

KEY TO THE SPECIES OF VANDENBOSCH/A IN HAWAI'I

1. Fronds usually less than 12 em long; rhizomes usually less than 0.1 mm diam; all major islands ..................................... 3. V. draytoniana

1. Mature fronds usually more than 12 cm long; rhizomes 1-4 mm diam. (2).

2(1). Blades triangular, widest at bases; stipes mostly 1/3-1/2 frond length; sori on bent stalks commonly protruding at right angles to blades; all major islands .............................................. L V. cyrtotheca

2. Blades lanceolate, narrowing at bases; stipes mostly 1/10-1/5 frond length; sori projecting in plane of blades (3).

3(2). Indusia tubular to cone-shaped, usually abruptly truncate at openings, not flared; blades narrowly lanceolate; middle pinnae mostly 3.5-5 x longer than wide; Kaua'i ....................................... 4. V. tubijlora

3. Indusia long, cone-shaped, flared at openings; blades wide-lanceolate; middle pinnae mostly 2-3 x longer than wide; all major islands ..... 2. V. davallioides