[4] "Interrupted" describes the gap in middle of the blade left by the fertile portions after they wither and eventually fall off.

Three to seven short, cinnamon-colored fertile segments are inserted in the middle of the length, giving the plant its name.

Like other species in the family Osmundaceae, it grows a very large rhizome, with persistent stipe bases from previous years.

In 2016, the subgenus was raised to a new genus, Claytosmunda, as part of the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification (PPG I).

[8] After[8] In eastern North America it occurs in: the Great Lakes region; eastern Canada – in southern Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec (north to tree line); and east to Newfoundland; eastern United States – upper New England south through the Appalachian Mountains and Atlantic seaboard, into the Southeastern United States in Georgia and Alabama; and west across the Southern United States to Mississippi River, and back up the Mississippi embayment through the Midwestern United States to the Great Lakes.

Claytosmunda claytoniana is found in humid zones, mostly in forests, but also in more open habitats and biomes, although rarely in bogs.