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Selaginella selaginoides
Also called Club Spikemoss, Low Spikemoss, Northern Spikemoss, Prickly Mountain Moss, Lesser Club Moss, Low Selaginella, Mountain Moss
Lesser clubmoss is a small, low-growing spikemoss that looks like a moss but is a vascular plant, found across cool northern regions and mountains. It needs cool, damp conditions and neutral to alkaline soil, and it does not compete well with tall vegetation.
Selaginella selaginoides is a non-flowering plant of the spikemoss genus Selaginella with a wide distribution around the Northern Hemisphere. It resembles a moss in appearance but is a vascular plant belonging to the division Lycopodiophyta. It has a number of common names including lesser clubmoss, club spikemoss, northern spikemoss, low spikemoss and prickly mountain-moss. This plant has one close relative, Selaginella deflexa, native to Hawaii. These two plants form a small clade that is sister to all other Selaginella species.
It has a near-circumpolar distribution in the northern hemisphere, including northern parts of Europe, Asia and North America including Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. In Europe it occurs south to the Pyrenees, Apennines and Caucasus. In Asia it reaches Japan while in North America it occurs south as far as Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine.
The plant has previously used as a remedy for rickets in Finnish traditional medicine.
Meadow spikemoss · Selaginella bryopteris · Lesser spikemoss · Krauss's Clubmoss · Flower of stone · Gemmiferous Spikemoss · Blue spikemoss · Willdenow's spikemoss · Spikemoss
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Selaginella selaginoides by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
