Mingan Moonwort

Botrychium minganense Victorin

Family Ophioglossaceae

Description

This moonwort is very similar to Botrychium lunaria and at one time was considered a variety of it (Botrychium lunaria var. minganense). Work by Wagner and Lord first confirmed that Botrychium minganense is a separate species. B. minganense is characterized by a firm to herbaceous textured, oblong, dull green, subsessile trophophore blade growing to10

cm long by 2.5 cm wide. Pinnae (to 10 pairs) are approximate to remote, in outline circular, fan-shaped, or ovate with somewhat sub-flabellate (concave sides), the apex rounded, and venation fan-like with short midvein. Pinnae margins are more or less entire to shallowly crenulate. In rare instances the pinnae may be pinnately lobed or divided. Sporophores of B. minganense are 1- or 2-pinnate and 1.5 to 2.5 the length of the trophophore.

Habitat

B. minganense has been found in northeastern Minnesota with B. lunaria and B. pallidum on old beach ridges under white and red pines, old fields cleared in jack pine associations, and on slag and clinker disposal sites under sapling quaking aspen. Soils tended to be humusy and fertile. Ranges from Alaska to California, Arizona, New Mexico and into the Rocky Mountains in Canada and the US. From there it extends east along the US/Canadian border to Quebec Newfoundland, and New England.

Taxonomic References

Wagner Jr., W. H. and L. P. Lord. 1956. The Morphological and Cytological Distinctness

 of Botrychium minganense and B. lunaria in Michigan. American Fern Journal. 71:20-30.

Wagner, Jr., W. H. and F. S. Wagner. 1993. OPHIOGLOSSACEAE C. Arardh in Flora of

 North America Editorial Committee. Flora of North America. Vol. 2. Pteridophytes and

 Gymnosperms. Oxford University Press. New

 York. xvi + 475 pages