Golden Club Moss; aka,
Krauss's Aurea Spikemoss
"Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea's return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern."
-Robert Frost
(1874-1963)
(1874-1963)
Two slowly converging clumps of Golden Club Moss are now well-established under the Rhododendron poukahense near hellebores & a fern. It is shown in this March 2003 portrait along with blooms from a nearby Cyclamen coum "Shell Pink."
It seems to find its situation ideal, being adapted to shade or part shade & requiring moist, humousy soil. It is also a plant that will do very well in a frog or salamander terrarium.
It forms one of the pleasantest imaginable evergreen groundcovers. It is ordinarily about six or eight inches tall & covers the ground densely, but it occasionally reaches a foot high & when used as a groundcover under ferns may need to be sheered down from time to time.
This is a primitive plant upon which vegetarian dinosaurs munched at the dawn of time. Actually, it was already an ancient-ancient plant before dinosaurs existed. Selaginellas, known as spikemosses or clubmosses, are so primitive they predate the development of seeds among plants. It is related to ferns & true mosses & reproduces by spoors, or by creeping surface-spread.