Terrestrial, medium to large, erect ferns. Rhizome a stout caudex, prostrate to erect, young parts densely covered with bristle-like hairs. Fronds long-stipitate, the stipe with a +/- interrupted pneumathode, a single +/- "U"-shaped vascular bundle, adaxially grooved, the groove and ridges continuous with the higher order grooves and ridges, lamina 4-pinnatifid, deltoid, the pinnae and pinnules also deltoid, anadromous, acroscopic sub-branches longer and at a wider angle than the basiscopic ones, veins free, simple or forked, terminating in lobes of the ultimate divisions of the lamina. Sori submarginal at the ends of single veins, the receptacle elongate across the direction of the vein, protected by a reflexed lobe of the lamina (outer or false indusium) and a thinner, saccate inner indusium attached at the base of the receptacle; sporangia maturing basipetally, stalked, theannulus complete, oblique, the stomium lateral, paraphyses numerous, simple, multiseptate, with a swollen apex. Spores trilete, the outer surface verrucouse.
Culcita: New World; pneumathodes prominent and separate; vascular strand at base of stipe diverging adaxially; sori much larger
Calochlaena: Old World; pneumathodes forming a not quite continuous line; vascular strand at base of stipe converging and curving inwards adaxially; sori much smaller
Species in Papuasia
|1a.||Inner indusium smaller than outer; midribs of quaternary leaflets rather closely hairy on the lower surface; mountain plants||
|Inner indusium at maturity larger than the outer, pouch-shaped and not reflexed; midribs of quaternary leaflets sparsely hairy; lowland plants||
|2a.||Largest quinary lobes commonly with only one sorus||
|Largest quinary lobes commonly with 2 or 3 sori||