Triplophyllum Holttum, Kew Bull.

Kessler, Michael & Smith, Alan R., 2018, Prodromus of a fern flora for Bolivia. XXXVIII. Tectariaceae, Phytotaxa 334 (3), pp. 248-254 : 252

Triplophyllum Holttum, Kew Bull. 41(2): 239. 1986.

Triplophyllum is distinguished by long-creeping rhizomes; fully tripinnate, deltate, or pentagonal blades; and adaxial surfaces of the rachises and costae with 0.1–0.4 mm long, reddish, articulate hairs. It is most easily confused with the unrelated genera Ctenitis and Megalastrum ( Dryopteridaceae ; Kessler et al. 2017), which usually have suberect or decumbent rhizomes and more numerous scales on the axes. Megalastrum further has whitish, strigose hairs on the adaxial surface of the axes, while Ctenitis often has cylindrical glands (glands, if present, spherical in Triplophyllum ) abaxially on the blades.

Triplophyllum has about 20 species, with about half of them in Africa and Madagascar ( Holttum 1986a) and the other half in the Neotropics, where they were recently monographed by Prado & Moran (2008).