Plants on rock or epiphytic. Leaves triangular-ovate, 2--3-pinnatifid, 2--5 × 1--1.5 cm, nearly glabrous with a few multicellular, gland-tipped hairs; margins entire. Gametophyte gemmae platelike, abundant. 2 n = 56, 84.

Shady, wet, vertical cliffs (gametophytes on wet rock or epiphytic on bark and decaying wood of large conifers); 0--20 m; B.C.; Alaska; e Asia.

Although sporophytes of Hymenophyllum wrightii are known from only a single locality on Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, gametophytes are more generously distributed along the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia (T. M. C. Taylor 1967). The gametophytes reproduce vegetatively and are capable of persisting and dispersing via gemmae without the intervention of the sporophyte generation.