Trophophore sessile; blade pale green, 3--4-pinnate, to 25 × 33 cm, thin, herbaceous. Pinnae to 12 pairs, usually approximate to overlapping, slightly ascending, distance between 1st and 2d pinnae not or slightly more than between 2d and 3d pairs, lanceolate, divided to tip. Pinnules lanceolate and deeply lobed, lobes linear, serrate, apex pointed, venation pinnate, midrib present. Sporophores 2-pinnate, 0.5--1.5(--2) times length of trophophore. 2 n =184. Leaves seasonal, appearing in early spring and dying in late summer. Common to abundant, especially in shaded forests and shrubby second growth, rare or absent in arid regions; 0--1500 m; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld., N.W.T., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; all states except Calif.; Mexico; Central America; South America in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru; Eurasia. Botrychium virginianum is the most widespread Botrychium in North America.

Plants 20-75 cm; bud becoming exposed on one side, its blade and sporophore both reflexed; blade medial or somewhat supramedial, sessile, thin, deciduous, sparingly pilose, deltoid, mostly 7-20 נ10-30 cm, 2-4 times ternate-pinnately compound, the pinnules and segments decurrent, the ultimate segments acutely toothed; sporophore bipinnate or tripinnate, mostly 6-15 cm, on a stalk 7-20 cm; 2n=184. Woods and moist, open places; Nf. and Lab. to Alas., s. to Fla. and Calif.; also in s. Mex. and irregularly in Eurasia. Spring and early summer.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.