which_chick | Clubmosses.

So, clubmosses are a thing. I was strolling around yesterday and happened upon four different kinds of clubmoss without much effort on my part.

And so you are all What the hell is a clubmoss? (Presumably. It might be that you're the sort of person who knows about clubmosses, but I'm betting not. If you already know about clubmosses, just scroll down to the pictures if you want to see them.)

Clubmosses are smallish evergreen plants that are not mosses. They're apparently kind of fern-like in terms of reproduction (they do spores) but they are not ferns. To my eyes as a child in the 1970's, they looked like baby pine trees but (a) Baby Pine Trees do not actually look like that at all and (b) they are not baby pine trees.

I think we have like five kinds of clubmoss but I was too lazy to walk to where I'm pretty sure the other kind lives so that I could do a point-by-point comparison of the similar-ish kinds. I have failed us all in the burning question of Are There Five Kinds Of Clubmosses In The Valley* Or Only Four? But we totally have four easily differentiated kinds of clubmoss, for sure. Here they are.

1. Lycopodium clavatum

2. Diphasiastrum digitatum

3. Huperzia lucidula

4. Lycopodium (obscurum, hickeyi, dendroidium -- more than one of these is present, I think. More research needed.)

These are not big plants. They're a couple of inches tall, at the best of times.

*The Valley is a thing. It's basically the five hundred odd acres of property my family owns in northwestern Fulton County PA outside of Breezewood. Most of it is covered in trees, though not Old Growth trees -- it's been timbered many times and so what we have is just ordinary post-timbering regrowth forest that isn't super fancy. We like it anyway.

I am sharing about clubmosses because this is part of my Get Outside And Move Around initiative. And also I like clubmosses.