Montana Field Guide

Stiff club-moss, a perennial, has elongated horizontal stems trailing on the ground, rooting at intervals, mostly unbranched. Upright shoots are clustered, mainly unbranched or sparsely branched near the base, 1.2-1.6 cm in diameter and to 20 cm or more in height; annual bud constrictions abrupt and conspicuous. Lateral branchlets few but without the annual constrictions. Leaves dark green, spreading to reflexed, linear-lanceolate (lance-shaped) 2.5 x 6 mm, stiff, sharp pointed, lacking a hair tip. Strobili (cone-like structure composed of overlapping scales bearing spore-containing structures) sessile at the ends of the shoots, solitary, 15-30 x 3.5-4.5 mm. Sporophylls (scales of the strobili) to 3.4 x 2 mm, abruptly narrowed to pointed tips.

Mesic to wet forest; valleys to subalpine, occasionally alpine. A small form of this species can be found growing in Sphagnum moss at the margin of fens (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).