Montane, subalpine.
Meadows, disturbed areas. Summer.
Lizard Head Trail, July 8, 2009.

All Botrychium are minute plants, very difficult to find in the field and very difficult to precisely identify.  The plants shown on this page are probably Botrychium echo. 

B. echo is found only in the Four Corners states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and it is found only in Colorado and Arizona in the immediate Four Corners area.  B. echo, B. lunaria, B. hesperium, B. lanceolatum, and B. minganense are the most common Botrychiums in Colorado, but even these are considered rare by some sources.

Many Botrychium grow in similar habitats and it is common to find a number of species near each other.  Since they readily hybridize, identification is quite difficult. 

Botrychium expert, Scotty Smith, indicates the following on the Colorado Native Plant Society Botrychium slide Show: 

"Botrychiums are small seedless vascular plants that reproduce by spores shed into the air.  They have fleshy roots, some species only occasionally emerge above ground, and they gain most of their nourishment from an association with mycorrhizal fungi.  The above ground portion of Botrychium consists of a "trophophore" (the photosynthetic branch) and a "sporophore" (the spore-bearing reproductive branch)." 

The entire above ground portion of a Botrychium is a single leaf which splits into the trophophore and sporophore.  Only Botrychiums and other Ophioglossaceae species have this unique leaf characteristic.

Botrychium echo (Moonwort, Botrychium)
Ophioglossaceae
(Adder's Tongue Family)

Montane, subalpine.
Meadows, disturbed areas.
Summer.
Lizard Head Trail, July 8, 2009 and Cross Mountain Trail, July 14, 2009.

The Botrychium genus was named by Olof Swartz in 1800; he replaced the original genus name of Osmunda given by Linnaeus in 1753.  The name “Botrychium” is derived from the Greek word “botrypus”, meaning “a cluster of grapes” and refers to the cluster of spore-producing sporangia on the sporophore. The plant is most commonly known as "Moonwort".  (The common name "Grapefern" is usually reserved for much larger Botrychiums, such as B. multifidum.) 

W. H. Wagner named B. echo in 1983 from a specimen collected at Glacier Lake near Ward, Colorado. The specific epithet, "echo" was given because it echoes, i.e., possesses characteristics of many other Moonwort species.

For a comprehensive discussion of Botrychium in general and for photographs, drawings, and complete descriptions of almost all U.S. Botrychium, see Dr. Donald Farrar's web page on the Ada Hayden Herbarium web site.

Botrychium echo (Moonwort, Botrychium)
Ophioglossaceae
(Adder's Tongue Family)

Montane, subalpine.
Meadows, disturbed areas. Summer.
Lizard Head Trail, July 8, 2009 and El Diente Trail, August 3, 2009.

These Botrychium echo are more developed than those in the photographs above.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Botrychium echo