Its native range is southern Mexico to Colombia. It is also found in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panamá.[1] Fossils indicate that it has been in its present range since the Miocene. Eocene-aged pollen from Europe and Southern China attributable to the genus indicate a wider distribution in the Northern Hemisphere in the past.[2]
The genus name of Mortoniodendron is in honour of Conrad Vernon Morton (1905–1972), an American botanist who did notable writings on Ferns.[3]
It was first described and published in Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Bot. Series 17 on page 411 in 1938.[1]