1. Cheilanthes alabamensis (Buckley) Kunze (Alabama lip fern) Pl. 14g,h; Map 59

Rhizomes compact to short-creeping, the scales brown, concolorous or slightly darker at the base, linear-lanceolate. Leaves clustered on the rhizome, 5–25(–50) cm long. Petioles black, glabrous or with jointed hairs, lacking scales. Leaf blades 2 times pinnately compound, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate in outline. Pinnules 2–8 mm long, oblong to narrowly triangular or linear, sometimes deeply lobed, glabrous or sparsely hairy above and beneath. Sori more or less in a continuous, marginal band around the pinnules or pinnule lobes, the edge of the narrow, recurved pinnule margins somewhat differentiated. Sporangia with 32 spores. Spores tan. 2n=87 (apogamous). July–October.

Uncommon in the southwestern portion of the Ozark Division (Arizona to Georgia, north to Kansas and Virginia; Mexico). Crevices of dry limestone and dolomite bluffs and boulders.