Clubmoss has had a common name change to Lesser Spikemoss (PPG1 2016). Its scientific name is still Selaginella densa.
The Spikemoss family is among a small group of surviving members of the ancient primitive vascular nonflowering Lycopods, which originated more than 350 million years ago, they dominated the earth during the Carboniferous period, and helped form the worlds hard coal (anthracite) deposits. The few remaining extant Lycopods have survived three major mass extinction events that occurred during the Late Permian, the Late Triassic, and the Late Cretaceous periods.
Spikemoss (Clubmoss) is a small plant that has several prostrate creeping stems that are 2 to 6 inches long that have numerous densely packed erect branches, which form thick mats. The branches are completely covered with tiny leaves 1 to 2 mm long. The very fine roots arise along the horizontal stems, forming an extensive tangled mass, and do not extend deeper than 2 inches below the soil surface. The primitive vascular system provides poor turgor pressure, as compensation the stems and branches accumulate high quantities of silica that comprise 16.5% of their weight to produce structural rigidity (Shakoor etal. 2015). This high silica content is also a huge deterrent from being eaten by animals.
Spikemoss does not produce flowers or seeds. It produces spores, large female spores, and small male spores. The flagellated male spores swim to the female spores when there is adequate available water. The resulting embryo develops into a tiny young sporeling that consists of a root, a stem, and two small leaves. When water is available, the sporelings are released and they drop to the ground. Growth of the sporelings and old plants is limited to the short periods that water is available to their shallow roots. The rate of radial growth has been estimated to average about 2/5 of an inch per year (Crane 1990).
Spikemoss is generally considered to be a problem plant. It has no identifiable advantageous characteristics, it provides no forage for livestock or wildlife, it provides no protective cover for birds or small animals, and it occupies space that forage plants could grow.
Spikemoss typically grows on shallow upland grassland soils managed by traditional grazing practices. These soils usually have ecological problems, they have low microbial biomass, low available mineral nitrogen, low organic matter, and extremely low water holding capacity. The shallow soils frequently become very dry between rain events.
Spikemoss has remarkable survivor characteristics. They are about the oldest and longest surviving living land plants on earth. They have lower water and nutrient requirements than grasses. Spikemoss can develop complete or nearly complete summer dormancy during dry periods, and they can regulate the recovery rate from partial to full activity depending on the amount of precipitation received after each dry spell. Spikemoss has very low death loss during dry periods.
Grasses do transform into a degree of summer dormancy because of the lack of soil water but they can not reach complete dormancy. Grasses appear to maintain some quantity of active tissue during summer dry spells at about the same level as they do during winter dormancy. Sometimes the interval between summer rain events is longer than the grasses can function on mobilized carbohydrates and a percentage of the grass population dies. Usually some annual forb will back fill the open spaces left by the dead grasses. Spikemoss has too slow of a growth rate to back fill these open spaces. It takes Spikemoss decades to develop a large enough ground cover to even be noticed.
After extensive research, there are no direct control treatments that have demonstrated repeatable successful results at reducing the problem plant of clubmoss (Crane 1990).
Spikemoss is not the actual problem. Spikemoss is the symptom of a soil functionality problem. In order to reduce the quantity of spikemoss, the ecosystem biogeochemical processes must be restored. That requires replacing the old traditional grazing management with a modern biologically effective twice-over system that moves some of the surplus carbohydrates produced by vegetative grass lead tillers through the roots to the soil microbes. The resulting increase in microbial biomass and activity transforms organic nitrogen into available mineral nitrogen which will activate the internal grass growth mechanisms increasing grass biomass production which will increase the quantity of soil organic matter. The increased microbe biomass and activity will increase soil aggregation that will improve the water holding capacity of the shallow soils. All of these improved changes in the ecological functionality of the soil will eliminate the previous soil problems and will also reduce the land area occupied by Spikemoss which was the symptom of those soil problems.
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