Pseudolycopodium densum

Lycopodiaceae

Pseudolycopodium densum (Rothm.) Holub

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/51347347

Rhizome creeping, to 3 m long, clothed in slightly spreading scale leaves. Branchlet systems erect, 10–100 cm tall. Leaves spiral to subwhorled, imbricate, appressed or spreading, adnate, dimorphic, green to yellowish green. Leaves of sterile branchlets linear-lanceolate, attenuate, 2–4.5 mm long, spreading. Leaves of sporogenous branchlets ovate-lanceolate, attenuate, 1–2.5 mm long; margins membranous, translucent, ciliate around the base. Leaves of central axis (sporogenous and sterile) similar to those on sterile branchlets, but appressed, 4.5–6 mm long. Strobili terminal on ultimate branchlets, 1–3.5 cm long, solitary. Sporophylls imbricate, acute; margins membranous, fimbriate. 

Eastern Australia from Thornton Peak to Tasmania. Also in New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Terrestrial, usually in oligotrophic wetlands on the margins of rainforest or in sclerophyll forest, heath or open lake and tarn situations. In NE QLD it is restricted to the peaks of high mountains.

Very difficult to propagate and establish.