12. MOONWORT
Botrychium Lunaria
Newfoundland to Connecticut and Central New York, in dry pastures. Three inches to nearly one foot high. A very fleshy plant.
Sterile portion.—Oblong, cut into several fan-shaped fleshy divisions, growing close to the stem about the middle of the plant.
Fertile portion.—Branching, long-stalked, usually the same height as or taller than the sterile portion.
The Moonwort is another of our rare little plants. It grows usually in dry pastures, fruiting in July.
Formerly it was accredited with various magic powers. Gathered by moonlight, it was said to "do wonders." The English poet Drayton refers to the Moonwort as "Lunary":
"Then sprinkled she the juice of rue
With nine drops of the midnight dew
From Lunary distilling."
PLATE IX
MOONWORT
LANCE LEAVED GRAPE FERN
Gerarde mentions its use by alchemists, who called it Martagon. In the work of Coles, an early writer on plants, we read: "It is said, yea, and believed by many that Moonwort will open the locks wherewith dwelling-houses are made fast, if it be put into the keyhole; as also that it will loosen ... shoes from those horses' feet that go on the places where it grows."
It is to the Moonwort that Withers alludes in the following lines:
"There is an herb, some say, whose vertue's such
It in the pasture, only with a touch
Unshoes the new-shod steed."