Cleveland's Lipfern Cheilanthes clevelandii

Myriopteris clevelandii or Cleveland's lip fern is a small to medium-sized fern native to southern California and Baja California in Mexico. The leaf is divided into small, bead-like segments densely covered with scales beneath. In M. clevelandii, some of these scales are reduced to hairlike structures, which help distinguish it from the closely related Coville's lip fern (M. covillei). One of the cheilanthoid lip ferns, it was usually classified in the genus Cheilanthes as Cheilanthes clevelandii until 2013, when the genus Myriopteris was again recognized as separate from Cheilanthes. It is usually found growing on exposed rock, particularly igneous rock. The species is named in honor of Daniel Cleveland, who collected the type specimen. Wikipedia →