Myriopteris gracilis grows from a short creeping rhizome with pale to red-brown scales usually with a dark mid-stripe.

[3] Myriopteris gracilis is native to much of western North America from British Columbia and Alberta to northern Mexico, and throughout much of the central United States.

[3] Myriopteris gracilis was first described by Antoine Laurent Apollinaire Fée in 1852, based on material collected by Nicholas Riehl near Hillsboro, Missouri.

Fée recognized Myriopteris as a new genus containing some highly-dissected American ferns placed by other authors in Cheilanthes, and described a few new species, including M. gracilis, which he considered to be closely related.

[5] The existing use of that name had been overlooked by Riehl, who labeled some of his specimens C. gracilis, and Georg Heinrich Mettenius published it as a name for Fée's species in 1859.