Description: Terrestrial plants, arising from a short erect tuberous rhizome bearing coarse fleshy roots.
Fronds rather thick, erect, usually solitary; sterile lamina stalked or sessile, pinnatisect to 3-pinnate, veins dichotomously branched and free; fertile part erect, borne as an offshoot of the stipe of the sterile frond, 1–3-pinnate.
Sporangia ± sessile along the axes, globose, dehiscing horizontally.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 25 species, nearly cosmopolitan. Australia: 2 species, Qld, N.S.W., Vic., Tas., S.A.
Text by Peter G. Wilson
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Sterile lamina 1-pinnate, narrow, very shortly stalked to ± sessile | Botrychium lunaria |
| Sterile lamina 2–4-pinnate, broad, distinctly stalked | Botrychium australe |
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