“ Although Christensen's “Index Filicum” and other authorities list Botrychium dissectum Spreng. as a separate species, it is rather difficult for an amateur to understand why it should be so regarded. Seen by itself on the mounted sheet there is no doubt a very marked difference between the typical dissectum and the typical obliquum; but when one finds, as anyone who cares to look for it may find, the typical forms of obliquum and dissectum with a complete set of intermediate forms and all growing within a few feet of each other, then the differences do not seem so striking. ”

“ If any of the other species of botrychia ever grew in the same spot, being larger and more conspicuous, they have been plucked up and exterminated.
Plate 1
(About natural size)
Near Burton in the same county, Botrychium dissectum Spreng. and Botrychium obliquum Muhl. and its varieties (as yet undetermined) grow in a moist, sandy bottom field of four or five acres in such profusion that even a modest estimate would sound almost absurd. Fifty-six plants were counted in a space estimated at twenty feet square. They were almost as numerous in other parts of the field. ”