AN OVERVIEW OF FAMILY PTERIDACEAE IN NORTH EAST INDIA ASHISH K. SONI*, MANAS R. DEBTA**, VINEET K. RAWAT*** Botanical Survey of India, Arunachal Pradesh Regional Centre, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh (Received November 28, 2020; Revised accepted Deecember 17, 2020) ABSTRACT The present paper deals with floristic account of family Pteridaceae E.D.M. Kirchn. from North East India. The list is prepared after thorough Field studies and scrutiny of herbaria and literature. It enlists 109 taxa from the said area; genus Pteris L. being the dominant one. Key Words : Floristic Account, North East India and Pteridaceae INTRODUCTION The fern family Pteridaceae is one of the largest among pteridophytes comprising over 1000 species (http://tolweb.org/Pteridaceae), which may be described to the wide spectrum of morphological and ecological diversity in which the members of this family inhabit. A glimpse into the life form composition of the family indicates the presence of epiphytes, fresh and brackish water aquatics, and luxuriant understory species in primary and secondary vegetation along with species withstanding high temperature in rocky deserts. This family attracts the attention of pteridologists across the globe not only for its diverse life form spectrum but also for the wide taxonomic disagreement leading to distribution of its species in at least 20 different families. A glance into the history of family Pteridaceae reveals that this family has received considerable attention of experts insofar as the phylogeny of order Polypodiales Link is concerned. Ching (1940) included only 11 genera while Copeland (1947) had recognized 63 genera under Pteridaceae which were diverse both morphologically and cytologically, Nayar (1974) had recognized 9 genera in his concept of the Pteridaceae where as Pichi Sermolli (1973) recognized 8 genera and Ching (1978) recognized 9 genera. However, a recent classification on extant ferns by Smith et al. (2006) merged 15 families under Pteridaceae and listed 50 genera and 950 spp., which is retained by PPG1 (2016) recognizing 5 subfamilies, 53 genera and about 1211 species. Fraser-Jenkins et al. (2016) also followed this trend of Christenhusz & Chase (2014) included 44 genera under family Pteridaceae. The members of this family are usually characterized by the absence of true indusia, the protective covering layer of sporangia, though some genera frequently develop recurved leaf margins to serve the same function. These structural modifications in the leaves are referred to as ‘false indusia’ or ‘pseudoindusia’. The other identifying characters of the family are free leaf veins, linear, submarginal sori and usually trilete to rarely monolete spore. Indian Fern J. 37 : 277-287 (2020) ISSN 0970-2741 E-mail : * ashishsoni33@rediffmail.com **manas_debta@rediffmail.com ***rawat_vk2107@rediffmail.com