is a species of fern that, according to DNA molecular analysis, belongs to the family Dicksoniaceae, where it is placed in the genus Lophosoria.

Lophosoria quadripinnata is a vascular plant with two alternating generations, a sporophyte and a gametophyte, multicellular and independent; with spores as a means of dispersion and survival.

The rhizome is massive, with hairs, not growing a trunk (not arborescent), and with radial symmetry instead of horizontal; a characteristic apparently originating in the ancestor of the tree ferns.

The fronds are large in size, 2-3 pinnations, with hairs on the under side of the petioles, and they are high on its abaxial part, all common characteristics of the Cyatheales order (the tree ferns clade).

The germination of the gametophyte corresponds to the genus Cyathea, giving rise to short strands of from two to six cells in both varieties.

Genetic analysis has placed the species unequivocally in the family Dicksoniaceae, but the story of its taxonomic placement is long.

In the 1990s a close relationship was hypothesized with Metaxyaceae because of characteristics of the petiole and stem morphology but subsequent analyzes suggested that these families were not related (D. S. Conant, unpublished data, cited in Wolf et al. 1999[5]).

On the other hand, ultrastructural studies (using scanning electron microscopy) of the spores (Gastony y Tyron 1976[6]) and recent studies of gametophyte development (Pérez-García et al. 1995[7]) have concluded that Lophosoria differs significantly from the characteristics of other tree ferns, so their relationship to the others remains unknown.

Other researchers, such as Kubitzki in Kramer (1990[8]) have it nested within Dicksoniaceae along with other genera that today are classified in other families of tree ferns.

The distribution of the Cyatheacidites has been used to infer that Lophosoria was located in the southern part of Gondwana during the Early Cretaceous Period, and then migrated to Australia and South America (Dettmann 1986[13]).

More recently, Cantrill (1998[14]) described fossilized leaves in the early Cretaceous layer (more specifically in the Aptian) in Antarctica, which contained spores of Cyatheacidites.