What is it Wednesday: January 29, 2020

Can you identify what's in this photo?

Each Wednesday morning 

on Camp Lutherlyn's Facebook page

 the Lutherlyn Environmental Education Program posts a photo. 

Readers have all morning and afternoon 

to make their best guess about what the photo is. 

Around 6 pm LEEP provides the answer and a brief explanation.

Each week's What is it Wednesday post 

will also be posted on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

 after it is posted on Facebook,

sometimes with additional bonus information. 

In addition to bringing you current editions of What is it Wednesday 

on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

we will be reposting old editions,

creating a What is it Wednesday archive. 

This photo was posted as a What is it Wednesday on

January 29, 2020. 

And the answer is....

These little plant parts poking up out of the snow are the “cones” of ground pine. 

Ground pine is also known as club moss (and other names like running pine, ground cedar, and Christmas green) but is not a pine or a moss. It is a small evergreen plant closely related to ferns, which grows from runners just below the soil surface. We generally refer to it by its genus name, Lycopodium.

The main leafy part of the plant has been featured before in this photo for What is it Wednesday.

Since it is not a coniferous tree, the little yellow tufts in the first two pictures are not really cones, but a part of the plant called the “strobilus” (plural: strobili), which carries the spores of the plant. The rest of the still-green plant is buried under the snow. 

It can take up to 20 years for a spore released by the strobilus to develop into a plant that is visible above ground! Luckily for the plant, lycopodium also spreads by sending out runners, which grow and root just under the soil surface. 

Because much of the plant is connected by long runners, and because it takes so long to reproduce by spores, Lycopodium can be vulnerable to over-harvesting. People pulling up strands of lycopodium for Christmas decorations or other purposes can easily remove the majority of the plants in a given area in a short period of time. For this reason, harvesting or disturbing Lycopodium is not recommended, and some species are vulnerable enough to be protected in some areas.

Lycopodium has an interesting role in the history of early photography and special effects. The abundant spores of Lycopodium were collected to provide “lycopodium powder.” The tiny spores have a high fat content and high surface area ratio, making them very flammable. However, when ignited, the powder burns up almost immediately, producing very little heat but a quick bright flash of light. Lycopodium powder was used to create the flash for early photographs, and for flash effects for theater and early cinema. 

We are sure we have at least three species of Lycopodium at Lutherlyn, and possibly more. One type has flat, spreading irregular fan-like branches, and is known as running pine. When taking the photo below, I did not see the leafy parts hidden in the snow. But based on the shape of the strobili, we are guessing that the species in this photo may be running pine. 

One type is more upright with spikier leaves and tree-like branches and is known as tree groundpine. The leafy green photo above is this variety. 

One type grows as mostly individual branches reaching up from the runner and dividing near the tips, giving an appearance similar to antlers, and is known as staghorn clubmoss. 

Naming varieties of Lycopodium is tricky, as there are many common names AND the scientific nomenclatures have changed many times, so the names used vary a great deal depending on the source.The names used here give us enough of a sense of "who" we are looking at that it helps us identify and talk about them, so they will work just fine for us, but could be confusing when talking to others who use the common names differently. We are hoping to keep in eye out for other varieties of Lycopodium when the weather warms up and they are visible again. 

Like and follow Camp Lutherlyn on Facebook, to see What is it Wednesday posts when they come out and have the opportunity to share your guesses in the comments!