Evergreen clubmoss

Photo Arne Ader
Translation Liis

Estonian text posted 18.12.2017

Clubmoss

Stiff clubmoss; Bristly clubmoss       Kattekold       Lycopodium annotinum

Southern Estonia is beautifully snowy white but in North Estonia the spruce searchers still walk in a late autumn forest. In spruce forests but also in many other habitats we may come across beautiful club mosses from which even our ancestors braided pretty ornaments for room decorations for the festive season. On the forest floor you simply have to notice them.

The evergreen stiff clubmoss is the most widely spread species in our forests (the softer, denser but protected stag’s-horn clubmoss is rarer). The stems with leaves of the clubmoss are up to twenty centimetres tall and upright, holding their little leaves spread or turned slightly downwards. The tips of the leaves feel rigid and even a little sharp. The creeping stem of an old plant is more than a metre long and has roots at intervals.

It is useful to know that the clubmoss is a fern family plant that spreads by spores – thus very slowly; development of a new plant may need tens of years even in favourable growing conditions .