Small terrestrial ferns with shortly creeping or ascending rhizomes, the fronds held erect. Rhizome a medullated protostele, the young parts and stipe bases bearing coarse septate hairs. Fronds simple or dichotomous, the lamina reduced to a narrow wing on each side of the axis, with 1(-2) rows of stomata, hardly or not at all distinguished from the narrow stipe, 2-celled glanular hairs frequent, the basal cells persistent and forming small warts; sporanagia borne on specialised constricted segments or sorophores. Sorophores in pinnate or pseudodigitate groups, terminal on the frond or brances, each with a median ridge on the abaxial surface, the sporangia attached to the sides of this ridge and protected by the reflexed margins of the sorophore; sporangia sessile, ovoid or ellipsoid, large, exindusiate, with a distal annulus of a single row of thickened cells, dehiscing by a longitudinal slit from the annulus to the base. Spores monolete, pale variously sculptured.
Sect. Schizaea: fronds several times dichotomous; sorophores attached in 2 rows congested at the apices of the frond, the margins of the sorophores entire.
Sect. Actinostachys: fronds simple; sorophores all inserted radially at the very apex of the frond, the edges of the sorophores entire
Sect. Microschizaea; Fronds simple or little-divided; sorophores attached in 2 rows at the apex of the frond, the margins of the sorophores coarsley lobed
Species in Papuasia
|1a.||Fronds repeatedly dichotomous...||S. dichotoma|
|2a.||Sorophores 2.5 - 5 cm long, all attached close together at the apex of the frond; frond 2 mm or more wide...||3|
|Sorophores much shorter, attached together or in 2 rows; frond narrower...||4|
|3a.||Sporangia in 4 rows on sorophores; a single row of stomata on each wing of the frond...||S. digitata|
|Sporangia in 2 rows on sorophores; stomata in 2 rows on each wing of the frond...||S. inopinnata|
|4a.||Edges of sorophores smooth and glabrous; the sorophores attached together at the apex of the frond...||5|
|Edges of sorophores irregularly lobed, the lobes bearing coarse hairs; the sorophores in 2 rows along the distal 5-20 mm of the axis...||6|
|5a.||Fronds more than 1 mm wide, with a distinct flat wing on each side of the costa; no hairs with sporangia...||S. digitata|
|Fronds less than 1 mm wide, the wing very slightly developed; hairs present with sporangia...||S. wagneri|
|6a.||Sorophores attached along the distal 10-20 mm of the axis of the frond; upper surface of frond deeply grooved, the lower surface evenly rounded and bearing superficial rows of stomata...||S. fistulosa|
|Sorophores attached along the distal 5-10 mm of the axis of the frond; upper surface of frond slightly grooved, stomata in two slight grooves on the distinctly flattened lower surface...||S. malaccana|