Rattlesnake Fern (TVA, White's Creek Small Wild Area, Plants)

Rattlesnake Fern

Botrypus virginianus

Summary ⁴

Botrypus virginianus, sometimes called rattlesnake fern, is a low-growing herb in the Ophioglossales, commonly a foot high or smaller. The plant is ternately branched and the leaves feel soft. The stem is bicolor, being pinkish or light tan at the base but greenish nearer the branches or leaves.

Barcode data: botrychium virginianum ⁵

The following is a representative barcode sequence, the centroid of all available sequences for this species.

Cultivation ⁶

The preference is partial sun to light shade, mesic to dry-mesic conditions, and a fertile loamy soil with an abundance of decaying organic matter. Generally, this fern is nearly impossible to cultivate from spores, which form underground gametophytes (the sexual life stage of ferns) that lack chlorophyll and take several years to develop. Their survival is dependent on the presence of appropriate mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. After this life stage is complete, a fern will begin to produce above-ground leaves (the sporophytic life stage). This fern is also difficult to propagate by division of its root system, and a transplanted fern usually fails to thrive at its new site. As a result of these difficulties, Rattlesnake Fern is rarely available for purposes of cultivation.

Description ⁷

This deciduous fern consists of a single sterile leaf about 4-8" long and 5-10" across on an erect basal stalk about 2-6" tall; this leaf is sessile. On some ferns, a second fertile leaf is produced on a long stalk that originates from the base of the sterile leaf. The basal stalk is light green to dark red, glabrous, terete, rather succulent, and stout. The sterile leaf is ascending or horizontal to the ground. It is light to medium green, deltate in outline, bipinnate-pinnatifid, and glabrous. The sterile leaf is pinnately divided into 5-12 pairs of leaflets that are individually deltate-ovate to lanceolate-oblong in outline; each leaflet is pinnately divided with up to 12 pairs of subleaflets that are individually oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate in outline. Each subleaflet is pinnatifid and coarsely dentate along its margins, dividing shallowly to deeply into several pairs of lateral lobes that are irregularly shaped. The stalk of the fertile leaf is 3-6" long, light green, terete, slightly succulent, and glabrous. At its apex, there is a glabrous fertile leaf about 3-6" long and about one-half as much across; its structure is bipinnate to pinnate. The leaflets and subleaflets are stalk-like in shape with sessile sporangia (spore-boring structures) along their sides; they are initially light green, but become brown at maturity. Individual sporangia are globoid in shape and 1 mm. across or less; they are initially light green, but become yellow and finally brown when their spores are released. A fertile leaf begins to develop before the sterile leaf has fully unfolded during the late spring. Spores are released from the fertile leaf during the summer. They are distributed by the wind. The root system is fibrous and fleshy. Occasionally, clonal offsets are produced.

Faunal associations ⁸

Very little is known about floral-faunal relationships for Rattlesnake Fern. Sometimes evergreen ferns in this genus are browsed by the Ruffed Grouse, Wild Turkey, and White-Tailed Deer, but this usually happens during the winter when little else is available. However, in contrast to other species of its genus in North America, Rattlesnake Fern is deciduous, rather than evergreen.

Sources and Credits

(c) Jason Hollinger, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://www.flickr.com/photos/7147684@N03/3818505878/
(c) Dendroica cerulea, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/dendroica/8704455127/
(c) James St. John, some rights reserved (CC BY), https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/19071540836/
Adapted by Jonathan (JC) Carpenter from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botrypus_virginianus
(c) Barcode of Life Data Systems, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://eol.org/data_objects/30744913
(c) John Hilty, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29448045
(c) John Hilty, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29448044
(c) John Hilty, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29448048

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