The reddish-brown, rather than chestnut brown, color of the axes and the leathery texture of the leaves, obscuring the veins, separate it from A. dealbata, of which it was once thought to be a variety.

[2] While Tryon considered it impossible to reasonably subdivide Notholaena into sections based on the data available at the time,[6] both Edwin Copeland and Weatherby himself had suggested in the 1940s that a group of ferns related to N. nivea might represent a distinct genus of its own.

[2] However, phylogenetic studies (based on chloroplast loci) showed that specimens identified as A. stuebeliana formed a clade with A. nivea sensu lato and A. chilensis, nesting within the former.

Both were apomictic polyploids, and one was (in rhizome scale features) morphologically intermediate between the other specimen and A. nivea sensu stricto, and possibly of hybrid origin.

[11] Argyrochosma stuebeliana is endemic to Andean Peru, where it has been collected from Amazonas south through Cajamarca, La Libertad and Huánuco to Junín.

[12][13] It is mainly known from the upper and middle reaches of the Huallaga, Marañón and Utcubamba river basins, but may be discovered in other watersheds where proper semi-dry environment exists.