Ground Pines Up Close

Looking like a baby pine tree, these tree clubmosses, Lycopodium obscurum, are in fact also known as ground pines or creeping cedars.What we see sprouting from the ground of the woods is the sporophyte; most of the action is going on underground, where rhizomes spread unseen. When you see a cluster of these, they are probably all coming off the same rhizome: they’re clones. This species, found from Alabama to Newfoundland, is a sign of a forest that has had some kind of major disturbance… but then, these samples were found in Massachusetts, where a stone wall running through the woods, as here, reminds us that the area was once clear cut for farm and pasture.

Update: A fellow Twitter-user clued me in on this: the minute spores of these and similar clubmosses were used as flash powder in early photography. Full of fat, they burn spectacularly. Lycopodium powder is still used for explosive effects, and has also been used to dust latex, including condoms; in cosmetics; to coat pills; as a dry parting compound in foundry work; and in homeopathic medicine.