| | The Lycopodiales of Britain and Ireland (Diphasiastrum, Huperzia, Isoetes, Lycopodium, Selaginella) |
“Fir Clubmoss”.
Lycopodium selago
Morphology. Stems elongated, with numerous small leaves; suberect, and rooting at the base only (decumbent only basally); 5–25 cm long; overtly dichotomising vegetatively; without secondary thickening. Leaves eligulate; 4–8 mm long; not hair-pointed.
Homosporous. Sporophylls resembling the foliage leaves; in fertile zones tending to alternate with sterile zones along the stems, rather than in well defined terminal cones. The sporangia basal and subsessile on the adaxial surfaces of the sporophylls, non-septate.
Ecology and distribution. Lowland, upland and montane; heaths, moors, mountain grasslands, rock ledges and mountain tops, ascending to about 1500 m. Throughout the British Isles, common in mountains but rare and decreasing in lowland regions.
Comments. The megaspores are non-functional, reproduction being via bud-like gemmae produced in the leaf axils.
Classification. Family Lycopodiaceae.
Ilustrations. • H. selago (Sowerby and Johnson, 1859). • H. selago: Eng. Bot. 1830 (1886). • British Lycopods: Sowerby and Johnson (1863). 1765, Diphasiastrum (Lycopodium) clavatum; 1766, Lycopodium annotinum; 1767, Diphasiastrum (Lycopodium) alpinum; 1768, Huperzia (Lycopodium) selago; 1769, Lycopodiella (Lycopodium) inundata; 1770, Selaginella selaginoides. From Sowerby and Johnson (1863).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2007 onwards. The Lycopodiales of Britain and Ireland (Diphasiastrum, Huperzia, Isoetes, Lycopodium, Selaginella). Version: 5th August 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
