Hairy lip fern

Nephrodium lanosum Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 270. 1803; Cheilanthes vestita (Sprengel) Swartz

Stems compact to short-creeping, usually 4--8 mm diam.; scales often uniformly brown but at least some on each plant with thin, poorly defined, dark, central stripe, linear-lanceolate, straight to slightly contorted, loosely appressed, persistent. Leaves clustered, 7--50 cm; vernation circinate. Petiole dark brown, rounded adaxially. Blade linear-oblong to lanceolate, usually 2-pinnate-pinnatifid at base, 1.5--5 cm wide; rachis rounded adaxially, lacking scales, with monomorphic pubescence. Pinnae not articulate, dark color of stalk continuing into pinna base, basal pair slightly smaller than adjacent pair, ± equilateral, appearing sparsely hirsute adaxially. Costae brown adaxially for most of length; abaxial scales absent. Ultimate segments oblong to lanceolate, not beadlike, the largest 3--5 mm, abaxially and adaxially sparsely hirsute with long, segmented hairs. False indusia marginal, weakly differentiated, 0.05--0.25 mm wide. Sori discontinuous, concentrated on small apical and lateral lobes. Sporangia containing 64 spores. 2 n = 60.

Sporulating summer--fall. Rocky slopes and ledges, on a variety of substrates including limestone and granite; 100--800 m; Ala., Ark., Conn., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kans., Ky., La., Md., Minn., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Cheilanthes lanosa is apparently confined to the forests and prairies of eastern North America, and reports of this distinctive species from Arizona and New Mexico (A. J. Petrik-Ott 1979) have not been substantiated by herbarium specimens.