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Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Chapter 2: Ophioglossaceæ Adder’s-Tongue Family
By Stewardson Brown
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About This Book

A concise field manual that surveys the alpine and subalpine plants encountered along the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks accessible by the trans-mountain railway, emphasizing distinct regional assemblages and plant adaptations to differences in moisture and exposure. Species are arranged by botanical families with general keys to families and genera; treatments include ferns, conifers, shrubs and the majority of herbaceous flowering plants while excluding grasses, sedges, and willows. Descriptions are accompanied by plates, watercolour illustrations and photographs, and the text relates local taxa to comparable mountain floras while noting characteristic species, habitats and elevational ranges.

Alpine Flora
of the
Canadian Rocky Mountains

Ophioglossaceæ
Adder’s-Tongue Family

More or less succulent fern-like plants, consisting of a stem and leaf growing from a fleshy root. Sporophyll in the form of a spike or panicle.

Botrychium lunaria (L.) Sw. Moon-wort.

Very fleshy, 2—12 inches high. Leaf usually sessile, borne at or above the middle of the stem, pinnate with 2—8 pairs of moon-like or fan-shaped lobes which vary from crenate to entire and either close and folded together or distant; spore-bearing portion 2—3 pinnate, often dense, 1—2 inches long, about as high as the leaf.

In open or exposed situations, frequently on the tops of the highest mountains, rather rare; occurring in midsummer.

Botrychium simplex E. Hitchcock. Small Moon-wort.

Plant 2—6 inches high, slender and very variable. Leaf ovate, obovate or oblong, entire, lobed or pinnately parted, borne near the base of the stem; spore-bearing portion a simple or slightly compound spike, sometimes reduced to only a few sporanges; apex of the leaf and spore-bearing portion erect in fruit.

In alpine meadows or grassy slopes, frequently through the Rockies but very inconspicuous; during summer.

Botrychium virginianum (L.) Sw. Virginia Grape Fern.

Stem slender, 4 inches to 2 feet high. Leaf thin, ternately divided and spreading 3—12 inches across, pinnately much divided into oblong-toothed segments; spore-bearing portion long-stalked, much above the leaf 2—3 pinnate, cinnamon brown, when ripe.

In rich moist woods, sparingly throughout the region during the summer.