Pellaea breweri

Brewer's cliff-brake

Family: Pteridaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Brewer's cliff-brake is a California native perennial fern found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California high country, Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, Great Basin, and Desert Mountains in north-facing granite rock crevices and slopes at elevations of 1,500 to 3,700 meters. With a short-creeping rhizome and clustered pale greenish fronds 8 to 20 centimeters long, this delicate fern grows with intricately branched stems covered in thread-like red-brown scales. Its distinctive leaves are 1-pinnate with oblong blades, featuring pinnae less than 2 centimeters long that are lance-ovate and deeply two-lobed. The fern's fronds have thin dark green rachises and emerge from narrow stipes with multiple fracture lines at the base, creating a delicate architectural structure. Its sporangia produce dark to light brown spores across 64 spore-producing sites.

Habitat: Generally n-facing granite rock crevices, slopes

Elevation: 1500-3700 m

Bioregions: KR, CaRH, SNH, SnBr, GB, DMtns

California counties: Tuolumne, Tulare, Siskiyou, Fresno, Inyo, Mono, Nevada, San Bernardino, Alpine, Modoc, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Plumas, Madera, Lassen, Mariposa, Butte, Ventura

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