It is found along the Andes from Colombia south to Argentina, typically growing in rocky settings in high valleys.

The stipe (the stalk of the leaf, below the blade) is slender, rounded, dull (rather than shiny), lacks hairs and scales, and a dark chestnut-brown in color.

The pinnulets are broadly oblong to nearly orbicular (circular), obtuse (blunt) at the tip and truncate (abruptly cut off) to nearly cordate (heart-shaped) at the base, with entire margins.

The leaf tissue is leathery in texture, free of hairs and scales above and densely covered in yellow farina (powder) below.

[1] The distinctive yellow farina of A. flavens is principally composed of 2',6'-dihydroxy-4'-methoxychalcone, while the isonotholaenic acid found in A. nivea is absent.

[9] In 1811, Nicaise Auguste Desvaux described the species Acrostichum tereticaulon, which he distinguished from Swartz's material by the lack of farina on the vein and margin.

[11] The species epithet, meaning "round-stemmed", presumably refers to the round stipe (leaf stalk), "stipite tereti" in his description.

Plants collected in Peru by Józef Warszewicz were brought into cultivation in Berlin, and described in 1855 by Johann Friedrich Klotzsch as Notholaena chrysophylla.

Klotzsch noted a close affinity to Cincinalis flavens, but considered his material to be somewhat different in the shape of the final leaf divisions.

[16] Meanwhile, the horticulturist Jean Jules Linden transferred Klotzsch's species to Cincinalis as C. chrysophylla in his "Catalogue des Plantes Exotiques" for 1862.

[17] William Jackson Hooker recognized G. flavens in his Species filicum in 1864,[18] but also described very similar material as Notholaena nivea var.

Hooker cited several syntypes, but material collected by Berthold Seemann in Loja, Ecuador is the only specimen at Kew that matches his description.

[20] Generic separation in the cheilanthoid ferns is difficult due to widespread homoplasy, and the soral characters discussed above were the subject of disagreement.

[22] William Ralph Maxon and Charles Alfred Weatherby discussed the merits of placing N. nivea and similar ferns, including N. flavens, in Notholaena versus Pellaea in a partial revision of the former genus in 1939.

[24] Weatherby had already confirmed Acrostichum tereticaulon as a synonym by examination of the type,[11] and they also placed N. chrysophylla in synonymy with N. nivea var. flava.

[26] However, Edwin Copeland, in the 1940s, had concurred with Weatherby in thinking that the ferns related to N. nivea might represent a distinct genus.

tenera, elevating both to species level on the grounds of consistent differences in morphology and range and continued distinctness when growing sympatrically.

[31] A phylogenetic analysis showed that A. flava is sister to a clade containing A. tenera in the strict sense and Argyrochosma chilensis.

[32] Argyrochosma flavens is a montane species, ranging from southwestern Colombia south along the Andes Mountains to northern and western Argentina, with a disjunct population in the highlands of southeastern Brazil.