Niebla flabellata is a fruticose lichen that grows on rocks along the foggy Pacific Coast of Baja California in the Northern Vizcaíno Desert, from San Fernando Canyon to the northern shore of the Vizcaíno Peninsula west to Cedros Island.

Niebla flabellata is characterized by a fragile thallus divided into irregularly flattened branches spreading from a holdfast, to 7 cm high and 6 cm across, and by containing the lichen substance salazinic acid (without triterpenes; with consalazinic acid, sabrosin derivative), and by its relatively thin cortex, 25–50 μm thick, in contrast to 45–75 μm thick in Niebla josecuervoi, which also differs by the cylindrical-prismatic branches.

[1] The species will mostly likely be confused with Niebla effusa, one that differs by having a rigid thallus that grows on ground instead on rocks, features that are associated with a thicker cortex (35–75 μm thick) and by the absence of a central attachment holdfast (in spreading over the ground).

[1] Niebla flabellata is one of the common pebble lichens in the Niebla communities found along the northern coastal peninsula of Baja California south of Campo Nuevo,[2] but it also occurs on rocks of canyon walls of arroyos, and on calcareous ridges.

[1] Niebla flabellata was first collected just north of Punta Santa Rosalillita (vicinity of Rancho San Andrés, 2 May 1985, as part of a 100 gram sample that largely contained Niebla caespitosa to be submitted for anti-HIV screening by the National Cancer Institute, but the sample was not immediately submitted because it contained thalli of N. flabellata and Niebla flagelliforma; the former is distinguished by having salazinic acid as indicated above, the latter with divaricatic acid and terminal flagelliform branchlets;.