Crepidomanes C.Presl, Epimel. Bot.

Kessler, Michael & Smith, Alan R., 2017, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. X. Hymenophyllaceae, Phytotaxa 328 (3), pp. 201-226 : 203-204

Crepidomanes C.Presl, Epimel. Bot. 258. 1851 [ Abh. Königl. Böhm. Ges. Wiss., ser. 5, 6: 618. 1851].

Crepidomanes is now generally construed to be a predominantly paleotropical genus of perhaps 30–40 species, and comprises the segregates (as subgenera or sections) Crepidomanes s.s., Gonocormus , Crepidium , and Nesopteris ( Ebihara et al. 2006) . It is most species-rich in Polynesia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and islands in the Indian Ocean. A single widespread neotropical species is most closely related to African species and to those on islands in the Indian Ocean ( Dubuisson et al. 2013). Seven species are known from the Mascarene islands ( Dubuisson et al. 2013), and it seems likely that critical study may uncover other cryptic species in Asia. Most species of Crepidomanes are epiphytic or epilithic on wet, moss-covered rocks in rain forests; however, subg. Nesopteris , in Asia and on Pacific Islands, is often terrestrial, with suberect rhizomes, or the rhizomes occasionally climbing.

Characters of the genus include generally long-creeping, often filiform, branching rhizomes (except subg. Nesopteris ); rhizomes lacking true roots but covered with dark reddish brown or often blackish hairs (rhizoids), these also sometimes extending onto the petioles and petiolar wings; conical or tubular (not bivalvate) involucres with slightly to well developed lips; paratactic sori with short- to long-exserted receptacles; absence of true roots or these replaced by root-like shoots; false veins sometimes present in the laminae (but not in the Bolivian species), if so these submarginal and/or parallel, but not connected to the true veins; blades flabellate or pinnatifid to quadripinnatifid, rarely simple; and x = 36.

Crepidomanes appears to be sister to the pantropical genus Vandenboschia ( Ebihara et al. 2006) .