Leaves are borne in two ranks in a single plane and lack a costa (midrib), unlike Scoliosorus.

A. gigantea (Bory) Rouhan, Boullet & Schuettpelz The genus was originally defined in 1907 by Ralph C. Benedict as a subgenus of a (broadly defined) Antrophyum, typified by Antrophyum boryanum and including three other species[4] (since reduced to two varieties of Antrophyopsis boryana and the species A. manniana).

[4][6] The first molecular phylogenetic study of the vittarioids, by Edmund H. Crane, found Antrophyum boryanum to be sister to Scoliosorus ensiformis.

[7] A more extensive phylogeny using multiple chloroplast markers, published in 2016 by Eric Schuettpelz et al., placed these species together with A. bivittatum in a clade sister to the rest of Antrophyum and distant from Scoliosorus.

In light of their distinctive spore morphology and geographic distribution when compared to the remainder of Antrophyum, Schuettpelz raised the subgenus to genus level, incorporating the three aforementioned species.