Carolina False Clubmoss

Horizontal stems flat in cross section, evergreen, tightly anchored by roots, year's growth 3--12 X 0.9--1.1 cm; leaves 3.5--6 X 1.2--2 mm, facing upward, spreading and appearing 2-ranked, broadly adnate, slightly subulate, median leaves 3.5--4 X 0.3--0.6 mm, nearly erect. Peduncle 1--(2--3), 5--30 cm, leaves 2--3 X 0.3--0.6 mm, in remote appressed pseudowhorls. Strobilus 1.5--9 X 0.3--0.5 mm. 2 n = 70, 140.

Ala., Del., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Miss., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., S.C., Tex., Va.; Mexico; Central America; South America; Asia; Africa.

Wet meadows, ditches, pinewoods, and bogs, often with sphagnum moss; 0--50m.

Lycopodium carolinianum Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 1104. 1753

caroliniana: the first specimen was collected in Carolina, United States.

Stem branched, creeping on the ground, rooting along its length, up to 6 mm in diameter. Leaves slightly dimorphic, lateral leaves spreading, membranous, slightly larger than the dorsal leaves, dorsal leaves somewhat appressed to stem. Strobili solitary, 70 × 6 mm, borne at the apex of an erect peduncle; peduncle 7-30 cm long, sparsely set with appressed, reduced leaves. Sporophylls broadly ovate, tapering with a deflexed point.

Malawi, Mozambique, S Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, tropical Africa. Also Madagascar, Mascarene Islands and north-eastern North America.