Myriopteris intertexta

Coastal lip fern, Coastal Lip Fern

Family: Pteridaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Coastal lip fern is a California native perennial found in northern coastal ranges, Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay Area, southern coastal ranges, San Bernardino Mountains, Modoc Plateau, and White and Inyo Mountains in rock crevices and rock bases at elevations of 300 to 2,800 meters. Its dark green fronds are finely divided into delicate, small, round segments with intricate pale to red-brown scale patterns that cover the leaf undersides. Growing with a short-creeping rhizome, this fern produces fronds 6 to 14 centimeters long and 1.5 to 3 centimeters wide with distinctive hooked young leaf tips. The leaves are intricately 3-pinnate, with pale stipes less than 1 millimeter wide and lanceolate scales that are ciliate at the base. The plant's complex leaf architecture is especially characterized by its young frond tips curling in a distinctive hooked pattern, with scales that barely extend beyond the segment margins.

Habitat: Crevices, bases of rocks

Elevation: 300-2800 m

Bioregions: NCoR, SNH, SnFrB, SCoR, SnBr(?), MP, W&ampI

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.