Image of common moonwort

Description:

Slo.: navadna mladomeseina - Habitat: alpine grassland / pasture, east to south, moderately to steeply inclined mountain slope, open place, full sun, relatively dry and nutrients poor skeletal calcareous ground with outcropped rocks, some siliceous acid rock intermeshed; exposed to direct precipitations, average precipitations ~ 3.000 mm/year, average temperature about 0 -2 deg C, elevation from 1.980 m to 2.100 m, (from 6.500 feet to6.900 feet), alpine phytogeographical region. - Substratum: soil. - Comment: Genus Botrychium members are strange looking, archaic fern plants quite uncommon and also not easy to find in taller surrounding greenery. Botrychium lunaria is the most common of them, actually, far more common than its other relatives. This widely, all over the world distributed plant is poisonous and exerts abortive effects. Its scientific name well describes plant's habitus. Greek word 'botrys' denotes cluster describing organization of its fertile part - sporangia, which looks like (upside-down turned) grape. Its species name 'lunaria' comes from Latin 'lunaris' meaning moonlike and describes its half-moon like leaflets of sterile part of the plant. - Ref.: (1) K. Lauber and G. Wagner, Flora Helvetica, 5. Auflage, Haupt (2012), p 48. (2) W. Dietl, M. Jorquera, Wiesen- und Alpenpflazen; Erkennen and den Blttern, Freuen and den Blten, sterreichischer Agrarverlag, FAL Zrich (2003), p 404. (3) M.A. Fischer, W. Adler, K. Oswald, Exkursionsflora sterreich Liechtenstein, Sdtirol, LO Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria (2005), p 234. (4) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije, Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007) (in Slovene), p 89. (5) D. Aeschimann, K. Lauber, D.M. Moser, J.P. Theurillat, Flora Alpina, Vol. 2., Haupt (2004), p 62.