English: Moonwort; Common moonwort.
genus: ± 70 species.
Clades: Botrychiuaceae; Ophioglossaceae.
Region: most widely distributed moonwort; Northern Hemisphere, Eurasia, Alaska to Greenland, Southern Hemisphere; distribution is patchy, locally rare.
Habitat: dry to moist short grassland, meadows, small woods, heaths and moors; frequently on higher ground; rarely in forests, either deciduous or pine, or open woodland; also on dune slacks; in Europe acid Alpine and sub-Alpine grassland, southern Balkan montane grasslands, closed sand steppes in central Europe, grasslands in Finland and Scandinavia; prefers neutral to alkaline soils, often over limestone or chalk, or in other lime-rich habitats; up to 2,500 metres; younger and adult plants are reliant on mycorrhizal relationships, vulnerable to disturbance of the soil, presence of rotting plant material may be required for this fern to grow successfully.

BotanyFern; up to 30 cm in tall; die down at the end of summer, frequently lying dormant for several seasons before re-appearing.
Root: underground caudex.
Leaves: single; pinnate; divided into a sterile frond and a fertile frond; sterile part has 4 to 9 pairs of fan-shaped leaflets or pinnae; fertile part has grapelike clusters of round sporangia producing spores.
Reproduction: eusporangiate, the sporangia derived from more than one initial cell and having sporangial walls more than one cell thick.
Spores: develop into underground, mycotrophic gametophytes.