[4] The species was first described as Notholaena newberryi by D. C. Eaton in 1873, from material collected near San Diego by John S. Newberry and Alphonso Wood, and in the Temescal Mountains by William Henry Brewer.

While Eaton regarded it as very similar to certain species of Cheilanthes, such as C. eatonii, he described it as a member of Notholaena due to the lack of a false indusium formed from the leaf margin.

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. newberryi, as part of a program to consolidate the cheilanthoid ferns into that genus.