Pellaea wrightiana Hooker. Wright's Cliff-brake. Phen: Mar-Nov. Hab: In crevices or soil mats over various acidic to slightly basic rocks; eastwards on open to shaded outcrops of Carolina slate, "rich" granitic rock, gneiss, and other rock types. Dist: Sw. AR (Ouachita Mountains; T. Witsell, pers. comm.) and OK west to se. CO and sw. UT, south to TX, AZ, and n. Mexico (COA, CHH, SON, BCN, and BCS), with a few, remarkable disjunct occurrences in c. NC (Wagner 1965; Heafner 2001) and w. SC (McMillan et al. 2018).

Origin/Endemic status: Native

Other Comments: P. wrightiana is a sexually-reproducing allotetraploid derivative of hybridization between P. ternifolia (Cavanilles) Link ssp. ternifolia and P. truncata Goodding (Windham et al. 2022).

Synonymy: = ETx1, FNA2, GrPl, K1, K3, K4, RAB, S13, TxFerns, Wagner (1965), Windham et al (2022); = Hemionitis wrightiana (Hook.) Christenh. – Christenhusz, Fay, & Byng (2018); = Pellaea ternifolia (Cav.) Link var. wrightiana (Hook.) A.F.Tryon – Tx

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Heliophily: 8