Selaginella is the sole genus in the family Selaginellaceae, the spikemosses or lesser clubmosses, a kind of vascular plant.

Quick Facts Scientific classification, Type species ...

Spikemoss Temporal range: Late Carboniferous–Recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Lycophytes
Class:	Lycopodiopsida
Order:	Selaginellales Prantl
Family:	Selaginellaceae Willk.
Genus:	Selaginella P. Beauv.
Type species
Selaginella selaginoides
Species
See text.
Synonyms
Bryodesma Soják 1992 Carpolepidium Palisot de Beauvois 1805 Didiclis Palisot de Beauvois 1803 Diplostachyum Palisot de Beauvois 1805 Gymnogynum Palisot de Beauvois 1804 Heterophyllae Spring 1840 Heterophyllium Hieronymus ex Börner 1912 Homoeophyllae Spring 1840 Homostachys Warburg 1900 Hypopterygiopsis Sakurai 1943 Lycopodioides Boehm. 1760 ex Kuntze 1891 Mirmau Adanson 1763 Polycocca Hill 1773 nom. superfl. Selaginoides Séguier 1754 nom. rej. Selago Browne 1756 nom. ill. Stachygynandrum Palisot de Beauvois 1804 nom. rej. Trispermium Hill 1773

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This family is distinguished from Lycopodiaceae (the clubmosses) by having scale-leaves bearing a ligule and by having spores of two types. They are sometimes included in an informal paraphyletic group called the "fern allies". S. moellendorffii is an important model organism. Its genome has been sequenced by the United States Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute.^[1] The name Selaginella was erected by Palisot de Beauvois solely for the species Selaginella selaginoides, which turns out (with the closely related Selaginella deflexa) to be a clade that is sister to all other Selaginellas, so any definitive subdivision of the species into separate genera leaves two taxa in Selaginella, with the hundreds of other species in new or resurrected genera.

Selaginella occurs mostly in the tropical regions of the world, with a handful of species to be found in the arctic-alpine zones of both hemispheres.^[2] Fossils assignable to the modern genus are known spanning over 300 million years from the Late Carboniferous to the present.^[3]

Selaginella species are creeping or ascendant plants with simple, scale-like leaves (microphylls) on branching stems from which roots also arise. The stems are aerial, horizontally creeping on the substratum (as in Selaginella kraussiana), sub-erect (Selaginella trachyphylla) or erect (as in Selaginella erythropus). The vascular steles are polystelic protosteles. Stem section shows the presence of more than two protosteles. Each stele is made up of diarch (having two strands of xylem^[4]) and exarch (growing outward in) xylems.^{[citation needed]} The steles are connected with the cortex by means of many tube-like structures called trabeculae, which are modified endodermal cells with casparian strips on their lateral walls.^{[citation needed]} The stems contain no pith.^{[citation needed]}

In Selaginella, each microphyll and sporophyll has a small scale-like outgrowth called a ligule at the base of the upper surface.^[5]: 7 The plants are heterosporous with spores of two different size classes, known as megaspores and microspores.^[6]

Unusual for the lycopods, which nearly always have microphylls with a single unbranched vein, the microphylls of a few Selaginella species contain a branched vascular trace.^[7]

Under dry conditions, some species of Selaginella can survive dehydration. In this state, they may roll up into brown balls and be uprooted, but can rehydrate under moist conditions, become green again and resume growth. This phenomenon is known as poikilohydry, and poikilohydric plants such as Selaginella bryopteris are sometimes referred to as resurrection plants.^[8]

This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2021)

Some scientists still place the Selaginellales in the class Lycopodiopsida (often misconstructed as "Lycopsida").^{[citation needed][9][10]} Some modern authors recognize three generic divisions of Selaginella: Selaginella, Bryodesma Sojak 1992, and Lycopodioides Boehm 1760. Lycopodioides would include the North American species S. apoda and S. eclipes, while Bryodesma would include S. rupestris (as Bryodesma rupestre). Stachygynandrum is also sometimes used to include the bulk of species.^{[citation needed]}

The first major attempt to define and subdivide the group was by Palisot de Beauvois^[11] in 1803-1805. He established the genus Selaginella as a monotypic genus, and placed the bulk of species in Stachygynandrum. Gymnogynum was another monotypic genus, but that name is superseded by his own earlier name of Didiclis. This turns out, today, to be a group of around 45-50 species also known as the Articulatae, since his genus Didiclis/Gymnogynum was based on Selaginella plumosa. He also described the genus Diplostachyum to include a group of species similar to Selaginella apoda. Spring inflated the genus Selaginella to hold all selaginelloid species four decades later.

Phylogenetic studies by Korall & Kenrick^[12][13] determined that the Euselaginella group, comprising solely the type species, Selaginella selaginoides and a closely related Hawaiian species, Selaginella deflexa, is a basal and anciently diverging sister to all other Selaginella species. Beyond this, their study split the remainder of species into two broad groups, one including the Bryodesma species, the Articulatae, section Ericetorum Jermy and others, and the other centered on the broad Stachygynandrum group.

This section does not cite any sources. (April 2021)

A number of Selaginella species are popular plants for cultivation, mostly tropical species. Some of the species popularly cultivated and actively available commercially include:

• S. kraussiana: golden clubmoss
• S. martensii: frosty fern
• S. moellendorffii: gemmiferous spikemoss
• S. erythropus: red selaginella or ruby-red spikemoss
• S. uncinata: peacock moss
• S. lepidophylla: resurrection plant
• S. braunii: arborvitae fern