The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

nodding club-moss

Roots

clustered at soil contacts of horizontal stem, 5–30 × 0.4–0.6 cm.

Horizontal stems

with leaves remote, linear-needlelike, recurved at base, upcurved at apex, 2.9–3.1 × 0.1–0.15 mm.

Upright shoots

to 45 × 3.5 mm, gradually diminishing and branched successively 3 times, 3–12 cm from base to form complex treelike habit.

Lateral branchlets

spreading-ascending, drooping at tips, 0.2–0.4 mm wide, leaves needlelike, recurved basally, upcurved apically, 2–2.5 × 0.1–0.2 mm, leaves and stems sometimes hairy near strobili.

Strobili

nodding at 60–80° to subtending vegetative branch, 0.4–0.8 × 0.15–0.2 cm.

Sporophylls

trowel-shaped, 1.5–2 × 0.7–0.8 mm, margins fringed, teeth to 0.2 mm, mostly branched.

Palhinhaea cernua

Habitat Wet depressions and ditches in pinelands, road banks
Elevation 0–100 m (0–300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; SC
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Palhinhaea cernua is a showy plant. This is probably the world's most abundant club-moss. The species overwinters as buried stem tips, the rest of the plant dying.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 2.
Parent taxa Lycopodiaceae > Palhinhaea
Synonyms Lycopodium cernuum
Name authority (Linnaeus) Vasconcellos & Franco: Bol. Soc. Brot. ser. 2, 41: 25. (1967)
Web links