THE MOONWORT. 79 



XIV. T HE' MOONWORT. 



Botrychium lunaria. 

 (Plate XI., Fig. 2, page 69.) 



LENGTH OF FROND. Two to ten inches. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Roots few in number, thick, 

 and fleshy. Rootstock fleshy, small, elongated, erect 

 growing, tuberous. Fronds of two parts barren and 

 fertile : the one leafy, the other spore-bearing. A com- 

 mon stipes supports both from the base to about midway 

 on the frond where the leafy portion diverges. It consists 

 of a single, somewhat bluntly lance-shaped pinna, with 

 pairs of opposite or alternate, crescent-shaped, fan-shaped, 

 or half-moon-shaped pinnules. The stipes, or, strictly 

 speaking, the rachis, continuing upwards and beyond 

 the leafy pinna, terminates in a single, branched cluster 

 of spore-cases. Fructification the fruitful part of the 

 frond is simply pinnate or bipinnate, the branches alter- 

 nate and again alternately branched in its lower part, 

 each branch bearing a small cluster of globular spore- 

 cases, which at the season of ripening turn from the 

 incipient green to a golden-brown colour. 



HABITATS. The open face of heaths, damp meadows, 

 and moors, amongst grass on spots somewhat elevated 

 but not extremely damp. 



WHERE FOUND. In England, in the counties of Bed- 

 ford, Bucks, Cambridge, Chester, Cornwall, Cumberland, 

 Derby, Devon, Dorset, Durham, Essex, Gloucester, 

 Hants (the mainland and the Isle of Wight), Hereford, 

 Kent, Lancaster, Leicester, Lincoln, Monmouth, Norfolk, 

 Northampton, Northumberland, Nottingham, Oxford, 

 Rutland, Salop, Somerset, Stafford, Suffolk, Surrey, 

 Sussex, Warwick, Westmoreland, Wilts, Worcester, and 



