Sparse Lobe Grape Fern

Botrychium biternatum (Savigny) Underw. Bot
Gaz. 22: 407. 1896.
Osmunda bitemata Savigny, in I^am. Encyc. 4 : 650. 1797. Botrypus lunaroides Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 2 : 274. 1803. Botrychium. lunaroides Sw. Syn. Fil, 172. 1806. Botrychium. fum.aroides Willd. Sp. PI. 5 : 63. 1810. Botrychium, Fumariae Spreng". Syst. Veg. 4 : 23. 1827. Sceptridium. hiternatum, Lyon, Bot. Gaz. 40: 457. 1905.
Plant 8-12 cm. high, the rhizome erect, short and stout ; bud with a few scattered
hairs, entirely enclosed ; commonstalk short, hypogean ; lamina lax, sessile or nearly so,
broadly deltoid or pentagonal, obtuse, 3-6 cm. long, 5-9 cm. broad, two or three times
pinnately or subternately divided, the lowest primary divisions deltoid, the upper ones
mostly oblong or oblong-ovate, the penultimate divisions oblong or oblong-ovate, pinnately
divided into fan-shaped to lunulate or reniform, mostly sessile, usually close, oblique
lateral segments, and somewhat larger, similarly shaped terminal segments, the outer
margins of the segments finely serrulate; sporophyl 6-10 cm. long, the stalk 4.5-9 cm.
long, the panicle rather lax ; spores maturing from February to April.
Type locality ; South Carolina.
Distribution : South Carolina to Florida and I^ouisiana.

Sceptridium biternatum, the southern grapefern or sparse-lobe grape fern , is a perennial fern in the family Ophioglossaceae, occurring in eastern North America. It occurs in "low woods, in hardwood and pine forests, in fields, and on roadsides." Like other grape ferns, it depends on a mycorrhizal association in the soil to survive.

In the fall its leaves and stem turn a reddish-brown / bronze color; a local name for it is “red fern”.