It grows in oak-pine forests of the Sierra Madre Oriental, often with the very similar and closely related Myriopteris tomentosa.

[2] The rachis (leaf axis) and costae (pinna axes) are covered in the same type of hairs and scales as the stipes.

[1] On fertile fronds, the sori are protected by false indusia formed by the edge of the leaf curling back over the underside.

M. tomentosa has a denser coating of hairs on both leaf surfaces, and its terminal and lateral subdivisions are more or less similar in shape.

Convergent evolution in arid environments is thought to be responsible for widespread homoplasy in the morphological characters traditionally used to classify it and the segregate genera that have sometimes been recognized.

On the basis of molecular evidence, Amanda Grusz and Michael D. Windham revived the genus Myriopteris in 2013 for a group of species formerly placed in Cheilanthes.

[5] In 2018, Maarten J. M. Christenhusz transferred the species to Hemionitis as H. chipinquensis, as part of a program to consolidate the cheilanthoid ferns into that genus.

[1][8] The two species, in turn, belong to a larger subclade which also includes M. jamaicensis, M. rufa, M. windhamii, and the more distantly related M. myriophylla.