Botrychium ascendens
Encyclopedia
Botrychium ascendens is a species of fern
Fern
A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...

 known by the common names triangle-lobe moonwort and upswept moonwort. It is native to North America from British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

 to northern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 as well as parts of eastern Canada. It lives in different habitat types, including grassy riverside areas. This is very small plant growing from an underground caudex
Caudex
A caudex is a form of stem morphology appearing as a thickened, short, perennial stem that is either underground or near ground level . It may be swollen for the purpose of water storage, especially in xerophytes...

 and sending one yellow-green leaf above the surface of the ground. The leaf is up to 6 centimeters tall and is divided into a sterile and a fertile part. The sterile part of the leaf has fan-shaped or wedge-shaped leaflets. The fertile part of the leaf is very different in shape, with tiny grapelike clusters of sporangia
Sporangium
A sporangium is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. All plants, fungi, and many other lineages form sporangia at some point in their life cycle...

by which it reproduces.

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