OPHIOGLOSSACEAE Adder’s Tongue Family

BOTRYCHIUM Moonwort

Note: Botrychium complex that includes lunaria, simplex, crenulatum, montanum, minganense and etc. are an extremely mixed up group of plants which will never be understood. There is a single population in Glacier National Park that has every conceivable frond shape. Many species could be named from this one population. In California there are some populations of what is called B. simplex which have characters for a number of taxa. They have bipinnate, pinnate to a single leaved frond, one of the plants have some fertile sporangia on the margin of the sterile frond, some have the fronds starting at ground level, while others begin well up the stem. There are other populations of this group that seem to be very consistent without much variation, which if they were all this way than a correlatable group of characters could be applied to all populations. A number of keys that have been made don’t seem to agree with the photos that are in the same text. The frond segments are not even remotely similar on plants that are call the same thing. The authors who write the keys make them sound like they are the gospel, when in truth they don’t even really now themselves the gospel. They try to say they know them by DNA work which is doubtful.

1 Sterile and fertile fronds opposite each other with both bearing sporangia B. paradoxum
1 Sterile and fertile not opposite each other, if opposite than triangular in shape; only one bearing sporangia
2 Sterile frond triangular in shape; veins pinnate B. lanceolatum
2 Sterile frond linear in shape, veins in the segments, if present, radiating
3 Petiole of sterile frond long and attached at about ground level B. simplex
3 Petiole of sterile frond short to almost lacking and attached more toward the middle of stem
4 Pinnae distant, oblong, wedge-shaped to narrowly fan-shaped, blade gradually expanding B. minganense
4 Pinnae generally fan-shaped B. crenulatum

Botrychium crenulatum W. H. Wagner
SCALLOPED MOONWORT. Limited, 10240 ft.; dryer part of meadows. †south of Johnson Lake 734 512E 43 12 065N Clifton 42883.
Botrychium lanceolatum (Gmel.) Ångstr.
var. lanceolatum
LANCE-LEAF MOONWORT. Limited, about 10240 ft.; dry upper margin of meadows. These plants don’t even look like ones from other places and most likely should be there own taxon, but others have call these plants this taxon. *†south of Johnson Lake 734 512E 43 12 065N Clifton 43256.
Botrychium lunaria (L.) Sw.
MOONWORT. Infrequent, 7,000-11,000 ft.; dryer part of meadows.
Botrychium minganense Vict.
MINGAN MOONWORT. Limited, about 10060 ft.; margins of wet meadows. †Baker Creek 734 398E 43 15 445N, *Highland Ridge 735 264E 43 06 138N Clifton 45269.
Botrychium paradoxum W. H. Wagner
PARADOX MOONWORT. Limited, about 10190 ft.; sandy limestone soil close to a drying drainage. Upper East Branch Decathon Canyon 736 791E 43 05 123N Clifton 54255.
Botrychium simplex E. Hitchc.
LEAST MOONWORT. Infrequent, 7000-11000 ft.; dryer parts of meadows, finely graveled, barren slopes. *†south of Johnson Lake 734 512E 43 12 065N.
Botrychium sp. open mesic, rocky slopes, alpine turf, meadows. These plants are often small and very easily overlooked. These apparently don’t seem to fit any known species. *Stella Lake T13N R68E S11, !Baker Lake 11 07 33 530E 43 14 991N.