BC Conservation Data Centre: Species Summary
Botrychium spathulatum
spoon-shaped moonwort
| Scientific Name: | Botrychium spathulatum W.H. Wagner | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English Name: | spoon-shaped moonwort | ||||||||||
| Classification / Taxonomy | |||||||||||
| Scientific Name - Concept Reference: | Kartesz, J.T. 1994. A synonymized checklist of the vascular flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland. 2nd edition. 2 vols. Timber Press, Portland, OR. | ||||||||||
| Classification Level: | Species | ||||||||||
| Species Group: | Vascular Plant | ||||||||||
| Species Code: | BOTRSPA | ||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Conservation Status / Legal Designation | |||||||||||
| Global Status: | G3 (Aug 2024) | ||||||||||
| Provincial Status: | S3S4 (Apr 2019) | ||||||||||
| BC List: | Yellow | ||||||||||
| Provincial FRPA list: | |||||||||||
| Provincial Wildlife Act: | |||||||||||
| COSEWIC Status: | |||||||||||
| SARA Schedule: | |||||||||||
| General Status Canada: | 3 - Sensitive (2010) | ||||||||||
| Ecology & Life History | |||||||||||
| General Description: | Spoon-leaf Moonwort produces a single erect frond, up to 18 cm high, that is divided into a sterile (trophophore) and a fertile (sporophore) section.. The shiny yellowish green trophophore has little to no stalk (stalk less than 1 mm long if present) and a narrowly triangular blade 4.5-9.0 cm long and 1.5-3.0 cm wide. The blade is pinnately divided into 2-8 pairs of spoon-shaped (widest at apex), widely spaced, entire to lobed leaflets (pinnae); the outer margins of lower ones are often cleft with wide sinuses. The basal pair of pinnae is commonly folder over the central axis. The sporophore is 1-2 times the length of the trophophore and 1-2 times pinnately divided into linear segments that bear the spores. | ||||||||||
| Technical Description: | Trophophore stalk 0-1 mm long; blade shiny yellow-green, narrowly deltate, flat, 1-pinnate, to 9 x 3 cm, thick, leathery. Pinnae 2-8 pairs, somewhat ascending and oblique, mostly separate to remote, distance between first and second pinnae not or slightly more than between second and third pairs, the basal pinnae pair largest and often folded over the rachis although adjacent pair approaches it in size and has similar cutting, mostly narrowly spatulate to linear-spatulate and rounded or ± 2-cleft, widest at rounded-notched apex, lobed to unlobed to tip, the corners rounded to angular, margins mainly entire or occasionally irregularly and shallowly incised and cleft with wide sinuses, venation like ribs of fan, midrib absent. Pinna stalks narrowly adnate 1/4 to 1/3 of the pinna width. Sporophores 1-2 times pinnate, 1.2-2 times length of trophophore. 2n =180 (Wagner and Wagner 1990, Flora of North America 1993). | ||||||||||
| Diagnostic Characteristics: | Botrychium spathulatum is similar to B. minganense and B. lunaria; all three species are small and the veins of the pinnae radiate out in a fan-like pattern and lack a clear midrib. It can be differentiated from B. minganense by its sessile or nearly sessile trophophore, its basal pinnae usually longer than the upper pinnae, its spoon-shaped, entire or irregularly cleft pinnae (vs. more uniformly oval to fan-shaped pinnae), its later-appearing leaves, and its more extensively divided fertile branch, A detailed table of differences between these two species is provided by Wagner and Wagner (1990; Table 1). The sessile trophophore with basal pinnae largest and pinnae margins rounded and entire (or if dissected, irregularly so with segment margins rounded and entire) also serves to differentiate B. spathulatum from B. gallicomontanum and B. pallidum. B. spathulatum can be distinguished from B. lunaria by its widely separated (vs. closely adjacent), less broadly fan-shaped pinnae. In western North America, B. spathulatum also co-occurs with the similar B. ascendens and B. crenulatum. It can be differentiated from these species by its spoon-shaped (vs. oval to fan-shaped) pinnae. It can be further differentiated from B. ascendens, which it resembles most closely due to the similar sessile (sometimes short-stalked) trophophore with basal pinnae largest, by its entire to dentate to shallowly lobed (vs. regularly coarsely toothed) outer pinna margins and, if the pinnae divided into segments, they are irregularly cleft into non-spreading lobes (vs. symmetrically cleft into two or four spreading lobes with toothed outer margins). Sporophore branches loose and angling away from rachis (vs. dense and lying closely along the rachis) and basal sporophore branches often branched and twisted so that sporangia project outward or downward (vs. basal sporophore branches seldom branched or twisted so that sporangia project upward) further distinguish B. spathulatum from B. ascendens. Farrar (2005) provides a table summarizing key differences between these two species. | ||||||||||
| Similar Species: | |||||||||||
| Habitats: (Type / Subtype / Dependence) |
Agriculture / Pasture/Old Field / Facultative - frequent use
Alpine/Tundra / Alpine/Subalpine Meadow / Unknown Grassland/Shrub / Meadow / Facultative - frequent use |
||||||||||
| Global Habitat Comments: | Botrychium spathulatum occurs in sand dunes, grassy railroad sidings, and in old fields (FNA 1993), usually in open or partially shaded habitats (Chadde and Kudray 2003). This species frequently grows with numerous other moonwort (Botrychium) species, such as B. campestre, B. minganense, and B. lunaria. | ||||||||||
| Provincial Habitat Comments: | All collections in BC have been in alpine meadows and bluffs, or mesic, gravelly roadsides. | ||||||||||
| Provincial Phenology: (1st half of month/ 2nd half of month) |
|||||||||||
| Elevation (m) (min / max): | Provincial: | ||||||||||
| Known Pests: | |||||||||||
| Pollen Vector: | |||||||||||
| Pollinator: | |||||||||||
| Dispersal: |
ABIOTIC
Wind |
||||||||||
| Provincial Inventory | |||||||||||
| Inventory Priority: | A - Highest | ||||||||||
| Ownership of occurrences (Known locations): | Mixed private/government | ||||||||||
| Inventory Need: | |||||||||||
| Economic Attributes | |||||||||||
| Distribution | |||||||||||
| Endemic: | N | ||||||||||
| Global Range Comment: | Botrychium spathulatum occurs in northern North America in several scattered regions from Alaska and the Northwest Territories of the United States and Canada south to British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, and Colorado (FNA 1993, NatureServe 2024). In eastern North America, it occurs from Manitoba south to Minnesota, east to Vermont, and north to Quebec in the United States and Canada. Range extent was estimated to be over 5 million square kilometers using herbarium specimens, photo-based observations, and NatureServe Network occurrence data collected between 1983 and 2024 (iNaturalist 2024, NatureServe 2024, SEINet 2024). Farrar (2005) notes that "because of the similarity of the species to western forms of B. ascendens and B. minganense the western occurrences have been questioned. However recent collections from Alaska, the Yukon and southeastern British Columbia have proved to be genetically identical to B. spathulatum from the Great Lakes, confirming the widespread occurrence of this taxon in northwestern North America." | ||||||||||
| Disjunct, more common elsewhere: | N | ||||||||||
| Peripheral, major distribution elsewhere: | N | ||||||||||
| Authors / Contributors | |||||||||||
| Global Information Author: | KAJ, rev. N. Ventrella (2024) | ||||||||||
| Last Updated: | Aug 05, 2024 | ||||||||||
| Provincial Information Author: | Hartwell, S. | ||||||||||
| Last Updated: | Mar 24, 2009 | ||||||||||
| Last Literature Search: | |||||||||||
| References and Related Literature | |||||||||||
Chadde, S., and G. Kudray. 2003. Conservation assessment for spoon-leaf moonwort (Botrychium spathulatum). Prepared for USDA Forest Service, Region 9 (Eastern Region). Requisition no. 43-54A7-0-0036. Project no. Ottawa-00-06. Online. Available: www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsm91_054144.pdf (accessed 2024). |
|||||||||||
Douglas, G.W., D. Meidinger, and J. Penny. 2002. Rare Native Vascular Plants of British Columbia, 2nd ed. B.C. Conserv. Data Centre, Terrestrial Inf. Branch, Victoria. 358pp. |
|||||||||||
Douglas, G.W., D. Meidinger, and J. Pojar, eds. 2000. Illustrated Flora of British Columbia, Vol. 5, Dicotyledons (Salicaceae through Zygophyllaceae) and Pteridophytes. B.C. Minist. Environ., Lands and Parks, and B.C. Minist. For., Victoria. 389pp. |
|||||||||||
Farrar, D. R. 2005g, January last update. Botrychium spathulatum species description, map, and photo page. In Farrar, D.R. 2006, June last update. Systematics of moonworts Botrychium subgenus Botrychium. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames. Online. Available: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~herbarium/botrychium.html (Accessed 2008) |
|||||||||||
Flora of North America Editorial Committee (FNA). 1993a. Flora of North America north of Mexico. Vol. 2. Pteridophytes and gymnosperms. Oxford Univ. Press, New York. xvi + 475 pp. |
|||||||||||
Wagner, W.H., Jr. and F.S. Wagner. 1990. Notes on the fan-leaflet group of moonworts in North America with descriptions of two new members. American Fern Journal 80(3):73-81. |
|||||||||||
Williston, P. 2005. Vascular plant species at risk in Mt. Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks. Rep. prepared for Parks Can. by Gentian Botanical Research, Smithers, BC. 40 pp + app. |
|||||||||||
Williston, P. 2006. Vascular Plant Species at Risk in Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks: Alpine Habitats. Rep. prepared for Parks Can. by Gentian Botanical Research, Smithers, BC. 23pp.+app. |
|||||||||||
Please visit the website Conservation Status Ranks for definitions of the data fields used in this summary report.
Suggested Citation:
B.C. Conservation Data Centre. 2024. Species Summary: Botrychium spathulatum. B.C. Minist. of Environment. Available: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ (accessed Jun 6, 2026).