This feature easily distinguishes it from the very similar-looking maidenhair spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes.

Green spleenwort was described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1753 Species Plantarum, under the name "Asplenium Trich.

[3] That name was later rejected in favour of William Hudson's later name Asplenium viride,[4] which had a type locality of "in rupibus humidis in montibus Walliæ et in comitatibus Eboracensi et Westmorlandico" (damp rocks in the mountains of Wales, Yorkshire and Westmorland).

[5] A global phylogeny of Asplenium published in 2020 divided the genus into eleven clades,[6] which were given informal names pending further taxonomic study.

Members of the clade grow on rocks and usually have once-pinnate leaf blades with slender, chestnut- to dark-brown stalks.