Flora of North America species comparison

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Botrychium paradoxum

Ophioglossaceae

Paradox moonwort, peculiar moonwort, two-spike moonwort

Adder's-tongue family
Habit Plants perennials, terrestrial or epiphytic.
Roots

lacking root hairs, unbranched or with a few narrow lateral branches, in 1 species dichotomously branched.
Stems

simple, unbranched, upright, with eustelic vascular tissue.
Leaves

bases dilated, clasping, forming sheath, open or fused, surrounding successive leaf primordia;

primordia glabrous or with long, uniseriate hairs.
Sporangia

exposed or embedded, 0.5–1.5 mm diam., thick-walled, with thousands of spores.
Spores

all 1 kind, trilete, thick-walled, surface rugate, tuberculate, baculate (with projecting rods usually higher than wide), sometimes joined in delicate network, mostly with ± warty surface.
Gametophytes

not green, usually fleshy, round or linear, subterranean, mycorrhizal.
Sporophores

double, 2 per leaf, 1-pinnate, 0.5–4 cm.

pinnately branched or simple.
Trophophore(s)

converted entirely to second fertile segment, stalk 1/2 length of fertile segment.

blades compound to simple, rarely absent, veins anastomosing or free, pinnate, or arranged like ribs of fan.
Indument

absent or of widely scattered, long, uniseriate hairs, especially on petioles and rachises.
2n

=180.

Botrychium paradoxum

Ophioglossaceae
Habitat Sporophores in June to August. Difficult to detect, plants usually hidden under other vegetation, in snowfields, secondary growth pastures
Elevation 1500–3000 m (4900–9800 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
MT; UT; AB; BC; SK
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Nearly worldwide
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

The leaf structure of Botrychium paradoxum is uniform and unique. Very rare teratological individuals of other moonwort species may have trophophores partially or wholly transformed into sporophores.

Botrychium × watertonense W.H. Wagner, known only from one locality in western Alberta, is the sterile hybrid of B. hesperium and B. paradoxum. It can be identified by its trophophore pinnae; all are bordered with sporangia. It may reproduce by some unknown mechanism, such as unreduced spores (W.H. Wagner Jr., F. S. Wagner, et al. 1984).

Of conservation concern.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Ophioglossaceae comprise two clearly defined subfamilies, Botrychioideae and Ophioglossoideae, which are sometimes recognized as distinct families. Ophioglossaceae may be only distantly related to the ferns and more closely related to Marattiales and certain seedplants, especially Cycadales, in such characteristics as stelar type, cork cambium, dilated leaf bases, conduplicate vernation, intercalary leaf growth, collateral leaf traces, circular-bordered pits, eusporangia, massive gametophytes, sunken archegonia, and presence in some species of endoscopic embryos.

(Key to genera of Ophioglossaceae)

Genera 5, species ca. 70–80 (3 genera, 38 species in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Blades mostly pinnately divided or lobed; veins free; margins entire to dentate to lacerate; sporangial clusters pinnately branched, sporangia sessile or terminating short stalks.
Botrychium
1. Blades undivided or palmately lobed; veins anastomosing; margins entire; sporangial clusters with sporangia embedded in compact linear spike.
→ 2
2. Trophophore blades simple, unlobed, to 4.5 cm wide; main areoles mostly less than 6 mm wide; sporophore 1 per leaf at ground level or above ground level, or absent; plants terrestrial.
Ophioglossum
2. Trophophore blades palmately lobed, to 30 cm wide; main areoles large, mostly more than 30 mm; sporophores several to many per leaf at base of blade; plants epiphytic.
Cheiroglossa
Source FNA vol. 2. FNA vol. 2, p. 85. Authors: Warren H. Wagner Jr., Florence S. Wagner.
Parent taxa Ophioglossaceae > Botrychium > subg. Botrychium
Sibling taxa
B. acuminatum, B. ascendens, B. biternatum, B. boreale, B. campestre, B. crenulatum, B. dissectum, B. echo, B. gallicomontanum, B. hesperium, B. jenmanii, B. lanceolatum, B. lunaria, B. lunarioides, B. matricariifolium, B. minganense, B. montanum, B. mormo, B. multifidum, B. oneidense, B. pallidum, B. pedunculosum, B. pinnatum, B. pseudopinnatum, B. pumicola, B. rugulosum, B. simplex, B. spathulatum, B. virginianum
Subordinate taxa
Botrychium, Cheiroglossa, Ophioglossum
Name authority W. H. Wagner: Amer. Fern J. 71: 24. (1981) Agardh
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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