Botrychium is the generic name for a group of fern-allies called grape-ferns from the sporangia clustered like bunches of grapes. It is classified with the Adder's Tongue Family, OPHIOGLOSSACEAE, each of whose members has an underground stem reduced to a short rootstock. A single leaf appears each year that is divided into a foliage part and a sporebearing spike or panicle that faces the former. The bud for the succeeding year's frond grows within the base of the stalk or petiole of the leaf, and is circinate, that is, rolled downward from the apex.

The Crater Lake grape-fern was the object of avid search by the park's scientist of promise, my budding sixteen-year-old helper, Roy Rogers. In his narration, he tells of its provision for existence in a rugged, exposed situation. Quite larger in size, growing in moister, kindlier situations is the leathery grape-fern, B. silaifolium Presl, that frequents shaded banks and sphagnum bogs from New England to California and north to Alaska. Great variation in size occurs among individual plants that cannot be referred to character of climate and soil.

On our botanical survey of the Siskiyous near Oregon Caves, Dr. Wm. S. Baker and I found this plant growing in a mossy site at the outlet of Lower Biglow Lake. I made a half-dozen hikes to the place before securing spore bearing specimens. This year, James Kezer added it to the park flora. He collected it at Spruce Lake and in the sphagnum bogs near Crater Spring, well within the park boundaries. Kezer's specimens have been examined and classified by Dr. Robert Clausen of Cornell University as B. multifidum ssp. silaifolium (Presl) Clausen.