Botrychium campestre is a very small and inconspicuous fern found in prairies and dunes and in other sunny, calcareous sites. The blade is once pinnate and the entire plant appears to be succulent or fleshy. Each plant is less than 5 cm tall and may be hidden beneath other vegetation. Plants grow early in the growing season and the aboveground portion wilts and dries up by mid-summer. In one case in Wisconsin after a spring prairie burn, the plants grew to full size and began to release spores and senesce within 40 days.

Botrychium campestre is known mainly from Iowa and northern Nebraska through the Dakotas and Montana into southern Saskatchewan and Alberta. It has a very limited distribution in Michigan and in Wisconsin it is known from only four sites. It is listed as "endangered" in Wisconsin.