Members of the family grow from rhizomes, that are either creeping or somewhat erect, and are usually but not always unbranched, and have scales that usually have a lattice-like (clathrate) structure.

[4] Athyrium is now placed in a different family, Athyriaceae, not considered very strongly related to the Aspleniaceae, and Scolopendrium is regarded as synonym of Asplenium.

[1] The narrow circumscription of the family adopted by the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I) recognizes only two genera, Asplenium and Hymenasplenium.

[7] As of July 2019[update], the broader circumscription of the Aspleniaceae is used by Plants of the World Online, which lists 24 genera.

The following cladogram, based on Lehtonen (2011)[9] and Rothfels & al. (2012),[2] shows a likely phylogenic relationship between the Aspleniaceae and the other families in the clade.

[10] The family is unusual in having high diversity in both temperate and tropical areas, and more-or-less equal numbers of terrestrial and epiphytic species.