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The smooth cliff brake has a decidedly northern range, growing from northern Vermont to Missouri, and northwestward, but found rarely, if at all, in southern New England.

Modern botanists are inclined to place the dense cliff brake and the slender cliff brake under the genus Cryptográmma, which is so nearly like Pellaea that one hesitates to choose between them.

The dense cliff brake may be described as follows: Stipes three to nine inches tall, blades one to three inches, triangular-ovate, pinnate at the summit, and tripinnate below.