Montana Field Guide

Leaf herbaceous, 5-17 cm tall, dull pale green (excluding the dark brown sporangia); common stalk of leaf 3-9 cm long; rachis folded more or less upward when alive, remote, the lower ones separated by 3 times the width of the pinnae; pinna outlines narrowly oblong to spatulate, rounded or truncate apically, up to 1 cm long x 0.5 cm wide, the large ones often once divided. Sporophore 109 cm tall, the stalk 0.5-2.3 cm long, mostly linear in outline but the lower 2-4 branches somewhat exaggerated in the largest leaves, reaching one-third (rarely one-half) the length of the entire sporangium-bearing portion, branches ascending; spores abortive, varying from large and approximately spherical to small and irregularly flattened (adapted from unpublished pdf file available from D. Farrar at Iowa State University, based on Wagner et al. 1984).

Grassy fields on south-facing slopes near stands of Lodgepole pine, in open soil and litter between tufts of grass.