It is native to montane California and western Nevada, Oregon east of the Cascades, and with a disjunct population in central Utah.

[6] In 1923, Maxon elevated it to the level of a full species as Cheilanthes intertexta in his treatment of ferns for LeRoy Abrams' Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States.

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.

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