There are wide lance shaped brown (initially much paler) scales without cilia on the costae (pinna midribs).

The blade is 3 to 4 pinnate at the base and leaflets are lobed and flat when first leafing out and later curl adaxially to cover sporangia and appear more bead like from the top view.

[4] Myriopteris fendleri is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, and ranges as far north as Colorado.

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.

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