Hanging clubmoss
Phlegmariurus dentatus
Family · Lycopodiaceae · Irritating
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The plant hanging from laurisilva trunks and banks like green ropes of scales. It is neither moss nor fern: it belongs to a lineage over three hundred million years old.
Oak woods · Uplands · Streams and ditches
Also known astoothed firmoss
How to tell it
Hanging or arching stems ten to forty centimetres, entirely covered in narrow stiff scale leaves set in a tight spiral, giving the look of a hairy rope. It makes no flowers and no sori in pouches: the sporangia are yellow balls hidden in the leaf axils. Range: the Azores and Madeira.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None. The genus contains huperzine, an alkaloid with strong activity on the nervous system, studied in medicine but toxic in unsupervised use. It is a protected species, grows very slowly and does not recover from being collected.
The law says
A species protected under the Habitats Directive. Do not collect or cut it.