Lycopodiella appressa
Lycopodiella appressa (Chapm.) Cranfill
(Latin: appressus, lying flat or pressed closely against something, appressed, in reference to the appressed leaves)
Local names: appressed bog club-moss, southern bog club-moss, Chapman’s club-moss, southern club-moss, tight-leaf club-moss, slender club-moss, appressed club-moss, southern appressed club-moss
Horizontal stems long-creeping, flat on ground, rooting throughout from lower surface, 1.5–2 mm in diam. (excluding leaves); leaves monomorphic, linear-lanceolate, ca. 5–7 mm long, ca. 0.8–1.2 mm wide appressed, sparsely toothed or entire; upright stems usually unbranched, 8–30(–40) cm tall, densely covered with leaves; strobili slender, ca. 2.5–7.5(–11) cm long, 3–6(–9) mm wide; sporophylls incurved, appressed; 2n = 156 (Wagner & Beitel 1993). Depressions, bogs, moist areas; Pineywoods w to Austin (H. Scarborough 50- 24), Henderson (Correll 14196), Robertson (J.T. Painter & F.A. Barkley 13483) (all BRIT, TEX-LL), Anderson, Leon (TAMU, TEX-LL), and Wood (TEX-LL) cos. in the Post Oak Savannah; also n Gulf Marshes and Prairies (Chambers Co., Brown 20559, SBSC; Jefferson Co.—Turner et al. 2003) and one collection along the s coast (Kleberg Co., L.E. Brown 5969, BRIT); se Canada and e U.S. from ME s to FL w to KS and TX; also Cuba. Sporulating Jun-Oct. [Lycopodium appressum (Chapm.) F.E. Lloyd & Underw., Lycopodium inundatum L. var. appressum Chapm.] There is a history of confusion in the correct epithet to use for this species—it has sometimes been incorrectly spelled as “adpressum.” Chapman originally named the taxon in 1878 in Botanical Gazette (Vol. 3, pg. 20), at the level of variety as Lycopodium inundatum L. var. appressum. However, in his Flora of the Southern United States (Chapman 1883), he spelled the name as L. inundatum L. var. adpressum. This misspelling was subsequently picked up by a variety of botanists (e.g., Palmer 1919a; Correll 1956; Correll & Correll 1972). However, according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (McNeill et al. 2006), the original spelling of a name or epithet is to be retained, except for the correction of problems such as typographical or orthographical errors. The spelling as given in the basionym (Lycopodium inundatum var. appressum) is thus the one to be used (but corrected for gender as appressa when treated in the genus Lycopodiella).