Greek gonos, progeny, offspring, + kormos, trunk, stump. The stipes produce new fronds in some species.

Plants tiny, filmy, epipetric or epiphytic. Rhizomes creeping, hairlike, branching, forming a tangled mat. Fronds minute, often with proliferations along stipes. Blades unevenly 1-pinnate to 1-pinnate-pinnatifid, fan-shaped to linear, margins dentate to entire, glabrous. Sori sparse. Indusia cone-shaped, long, with flared apex.

A genus of about ten poorly defined species ranging from Africa to Australia to Japan. Represented in Hawai 'i by two indigenous species, which some treat as a single variable species (Gonocormus minutus). In Hawai 'i the two taxa appear quite distinct.

KEY TO THE SPECIES OF GONOCORMUS IN HAWAI'I

1. Fronds up to 1.5 cm long, rarely proliferous; blades usually round to fanshaped; common, mainly at low elevations; all major islands . . . . 1. G. minutus

1. Fronds 2-6 cm long, commonly proliferous along distal stipe to distal rachis; blades linear to long-triangular, unevenly 1-pinnate to 1-pinnate-pinnatifid; rare at higher elevations; Maui, Hawai 'i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. G. prolifer