THE COMMON MOONWOET. 



Botrychium Lunaria* SWARTZ. 



The Common Moonwort (a 

 Botrychium, of the order OPHIO- 

 GLOSSACEjE, distinguished from all 

 the Polypodiaceae or True Ferns, 

 by their young fronds being not 

 circinate, but folded straightly, 

 though at the same time resem- 

 bling the Osmundinese in having 

 no elastic ring and in being two- 

 valved) is one step farther in the 

 course of natural variety, for, as 

 through Polypodiaceae and Tri- 

 chomaninese there is one regular 

 progression and change of method 

 of fructification from the spore- 

 cases without indusium to the 

 spore-cases with indusium, from 

 the simplest forms of indusia to 

 the flask or bladder shapes, from the spore-cases on the 

 backs to the spore-cases on the margins, and the spore- 

 cases (as in Osmunda) on the ends of fronds transformed 

 into seeming stalks, so the Ophioglossaceae show yet 



* Osmunda Lunaria (Linneeus), Ophioglossum pcnnatum, &c. 



