Club Moss

This is such an attractive moss. Photographed this patch growing at the base of a tree in West Bragg Creek, Kananaskis, on 24 August 2013. A few of us spent a number of hours searching for fungi that day. Most enjoyable, even more so as I barely got out anywhere this summer/fall to look for them.

"The club mosses are small, creeping, terrestrial or epiphytic, vascular plants, which lack flowers and reproduce sexually by spores. The sporophyte consists of true roots, an aerial stem and scale-like leaves which are microphylls. These are small and spirally arranged on an elongated stem.

The spores are generally borne singly in the axils of specialised leaves (sporophylls), and these are often aggregated into cone-like strobili. It's these sporophylls that resemble clubs and give this group it's name."

hiddenforest.co.nz/plants/clubmosses/clubmosses.htm