''Huperzia selago'', the northern firmoss or fir clubmoss, is a

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes (, ) or collectively tracheophyta (; ), are plants that have lignin, lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified Ti ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Lycopodiaceae The Lycopodiaceae (class Lycopodiopsida, order Lycopodiales) are an old family of vascular plants, including all of the core clubmosses and firmosses, comprising 17 accepted genera and about 500 known species. This family originated about 380 mi ...

. It is small-ish, sturdy, stiff and upright and densely scale-leaved. This plant is an

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

pteridophyte A pteridophyte is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that reproduces by means of spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as " cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is ...

. The

spores In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual (in fungi) or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plant ...

are produced June to September.Piirainen, Mikko; Piirainen, Pirkko; Vainio, Hannele (1999). ''Kotimaan luonnonkasvit'' 'Native wild plants''(in Finnish). Porvoo: WSOY. p. 14. It has a

circumpolar distribution A circumpolar distribution is any range (biology), range of a taxon that occurs over a wide range of longitudes but only at high latitudes; such a range therefore extends all the way around either the North Pole or the South Pole. Taxa that are al ...

Description

The

dichotomous A dichotomy () is a partition of a set, partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be * jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and * mutually exclusive: nothi ...

stalk of the plant is 5-20 cm with the branches being of same length with one another. The leaves are densely spiral, flat and needle-like, 4-8 mm long. The

sporangium A sporangium (from Late Latin, ; : sporangia) is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a unicellular organism, single cell or can be multicellular organism, multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungus, fungi, and many ot ...

are at the base of the leaves of the shoot's top. There are often

bulbils A bulbil (also referred to as a bulbel, bulblet, and/or pup) is a small, young plant that is reproduced vegetatively from axillary buds on the parent plant's stem or in place of a flower on an inflorescence. These young plants are clones of the ...

in the leaf axils.

Distribution and habitat

It is a circumpolar plant, found in the northern parts of North America, Europe, and Asia. It is found in sandy pits, ditches, along lakeshores, heathland and in

conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

swamps. In the northeastern United States, it is found in boreal habitat, but not alpine zones. In Europe, its range extends from

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

to the mountains of northern Spain and Italy, and from the British Isles east through central Asia to the

Kamchatka peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

and

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

Uses

"Upper Tanana Indians used the whole plant in a poultice applied to the head for headaches". In Finnish

traditional medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used for maintaining health and treatin ...

this plant has been used as a remedy against

rickets Rickets, scientific nomenclature: rachitis (from Greek , meaning 'in or of the spine'), is a condition that results in weak or soft bones in children and may have either dietary deficiency or genetic causes. Symptoms include bowed legs, stun ...

. This toxic plant, containing lycopodium

alkaloid Alkaloids are a broad class of natural product, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids. Alkaloids are produced by a large varie ...

has been used as an

emetic Vomiting (also known as emesis, puking and throwing up) is the forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose. Vomiting can be the result of ailments like food poisoning, gastroenteritis, preg ...

and a remedy against maggots in Finnish

References

External links

''Huperzia selago'' at Plant-identification.co.uk
selago Flora of Northern America Flora of Europe Flora of Asia {{Lycophyte-stub