THE MOONWORT 
243 
and a fertile stem, tlie first growing away at an acute angle 
from the other, and developing on each side of it a row of 
somewhat crescent- shaped or half-moon-shaped pinnules, 
attached by short stems — the fertile stem continuing to grow 
upwards, in a line with the stalk from the rootstock, and at 
an inch or two above the point of division developing on each 
side of it alternate branches hearing alternate clusters of 
round two-valved spore cases, which, when ripe, are of a 
reddish brown colour. The stipes from the scaly sheath at 
the crown of the rootstock to the point from which the leafy 
pinna starts is, in length, somewhat less than half the entire 
length of the frond. The venation in the barren frond 
consists of a series of forked veins, nearly parallel with each 
other, their extremities running to the edges of the pinnules. 
The Moonwort is a deciduous species, the frond springing up 
in April, and disappearing in July; and it is a curious and 
interesting fact that within the stalk or stipes, and at its 
base, there is the immature frond — both barren and fertile 
branch — of the succeeding year, and within that again the 
frond of the third year, the latter being, of course, still more 
immature than that of the second. The colour of the 
Moonwort is a vivid green, and the texture of the plant 
thick. Its fronds are brittle, and succulent, reaching a 
length of from two or three to ten inches. Its botanic name 
of Botrychmm is derived from botrys, 1 a cluster of grapes.’ in 
allusion to the — on a small scale — branches or grape-like 
clusters of the spore cases. Lunaria probably refers to the 
half-moon shaped pinnules on the barren branch of the frond. 
The Moonwort frond does not unroll like most fronds, but 
opens by a straight process of unfolding. Botnjchium 
lunaria is the only species w T e possess in Britain of the genus 
Botrychium, which consists of Ferns with marginal-borne 
spore cases, arranged in branched clusters growing on a 
separate division of the frond. From the normal form of the 
