_Selaginella Family_
Moss-like plants with branching stems and scale-like leaves which are
many ranked and uniform, or 4-ranked and of two types spreading in two
planes. Sporanges solitary in the axils of the leaves which are so
arranged as to form more or less quadrangular spikes.
[Sidenote: =Selaginella selaginoides= (L.) Link. _Low Selaginella._]
Sterile stems, prostrate and creeping, small and slender; fertile
stems thicker, ascending, simple 1—3 inches high; leaves lanceolate,
acute, spreading, sparsely spinulose-ciliate; spikes solitary at the
ends of the fertile branches, bracts lax, ascending lanceolate or
ovate-lanceolate, strongly fringed.
A light green moss-like plant growing in wet sandy grounds in the
Rockies; not infrequent.
[Sidenote: =Selaginella densa= Rydb.]
Densely tufted sterile branches very short and crowded; leaves, densely
crowded, many-ranked linear or needle-shaped in age, slightly flattened
and grooved on the upper side, the margin fringed, tipped with a white
bristle; fertile branches erect, the spikes quadrangular ½—¾ of an
inch long, bracts folded together, thick, triangular-ovate, fringed on
the margin and tipped with a white bristle half as long as that of the
leaves.
In sterile dry ground and on exposed rocks throughout the region from
the bases to the tops of the highest mountains, forming grayish-green
mats on the ground.