[3][4] It is covered with persistent scales about 2 millimeters (0.08 in) long,[5] which are linear to narrowly lanceolate, straight or slightly twisted, and tightly appressed (pressed against the surface of the rhizome).

[3][7] The rachis (leaf axis) is rounded, rather than grooved, on its upper surface, dark in color, with some scales but no hairs.

The edges of the leaflets are curled under (forming a false indusium) and their undersides have wide scales which are lengthened outgrowths of the epidermis.

Myriopteris covillei was first described by William Ralph Maxon in 1918, as Cheilanthes covillei, based on material collected in the Panamint Range by Frederick Vernon Coville and Frederick Funston on the United States Department of Agriculture's Death Valley expedition in 1891.

[10] Farwell's name was rendered unnecessary when Cheilanthes was conserved over Allosorus in the Paris Code published in 1956.

Rodolfo Pichi-Sermolli, in 1977, advocated the revival of the genus Myriopteris for a small group of species usually placed in Cheilanthes,[11] although this was not widely accepted by his contemporaries.

[12] The development of molecular phylogenetic methods showed that the traditional circumscription of Cheilanthes, including that used by Maxon, is polyphyletic.

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, such as Myriopteris, that have sometimes been recognized.

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