Name honors John Lindsay (fl. 1780s-1803), a surgeon in Jamaica near the end of the eighteenth century who conducted studies regarding spore germination.
Plants medium-sized, terrestrial. Rhizomes short to long-creeping, densely covered with nonclathrate, narrow, or bristle like scales. Stipes with sparse scales only at base. Blades 1-to 4-pinnate; rachises deeply grooved, glabrous. Veins free or anastomosing, not extending to margins. Sari submarginal, discrete or continuous. Indusia cup-shaped, attached at bases and sometimes at sides, opening outward, or linear, membranous, continuous along most of length of pinnae margins, opening outward.
A mostly tropical family with about six genera, represented in Hawai 'i by two genera and one rare intergeneric hybrid.
