It makes use of a novel adaptation to the desert environment to harvest and collect water sources such as dew, fog, snow, and rain, using tiny hairs instead of roots.

The plant was first described by English bryologist William Mitten (1819–1906) to the Linnean Society of London in May 1858, with a description published in their journal in February 1859.

[5] S. caninervis has a widespread global distribution and is an extremophile[6] commonly found in extreme desert environments[7] and hypolithic communities[2] with the capacity to withstand desiccation under dry conditions.

[9] In Tibet, Antarctica, and circumpolar regions, it is part of the biological soil crust, which is a resilient type of ground cover often found in arid lands.

In the United States, it is found as far east as New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, all the way through Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada, and as far west as California, Oregon, and Washington.

Two of the most common plant communities in the United States are found in the Mojave Desert and in the Columbia River drainage basin.

Among these adaptions is its tiny hairs on the leaves that allow it to exploit multiple different sources of water, such as dew, fog, snow, and rain.