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Northern moonwort

Botrychium pinnatum

Also called Northwestern Moonwort, Northern Grapefern

Northern moonwort
Photo: pellaea, CC BY 2.0
Family
Ophioglossaceae (Ophiogloss family)
Grows as
Fern
Native range
Subarctic America to W. U.S.A.

About

Botrychium pinnatum is a species of fern in the family Ophioglossaceae, known by the common name northwestern moonwort. It is native to North America from Alaska to northern Canada to California and Arizona, where it is generally scattered and uncommon, growing in coniferous forests and grassy meadows. This is very small plant growing from an underground caudex and sending one thin, shiny, green leaf above the surface of the ground. The leaf is less than 8 centimeters tall and is divided into a sterile and a fertile part. The flat sterile part of the leaf has oval to widely lance-shaped leaflets. The fertile part of the leaf is very different in shape, with grapelike clusters of sporangia by which it reproduces.

Other Botrychium plants

Trianglelobe moonwort · Northern moonwort · Iowa moonwort · Scalloped moonwort · Lanceleaf grapefern · Common moonwort · Matricary grapefern · Mingan moonwort · Mountain moonwort · Onondaga Moonwort · Pale botrychium · Peculiar moonwort

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Botrychium pinnatum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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