User:Choess/Phlegmariurus dacrydioides

Phlegmariurus dacrydioides is a species of clubmoss.

Description
P. dacrydioides is typically epiphytic, with the stems dangling from their point of rooting on a branch. They are typically 60 to 90 cm long, occasionally as long as 1.5 m. Each stem typically branches once or twice.

The leaves are rather loosely distributed on the stem, overlapping one another. They are linear-lanceolate in shape, with attenuate tips (drawn to a fine point). Trophophylls (leaves not associated with sporangia) grow up to 20 mm long and 2 mm wide, glossy, and dark green in color. The sporophylls are not well differentiated from the trophophylls as in some species of Phlegmariurus. They reach a maximum of about 10 mm long, and are lanceolate in shape with an attenuate or cuspidate tip.

In southern Africa, it is most easily confused with epiphytic Phlegmariurus gnidioides, which has easily distinguished fertile regions of the stem where the sporophylls are markedly smaller, and less sharply pointed leaf tips. In west and central Africa, its range overlaps that of P. brachystachys and P. mildbraedii, both of which have been lumped with it in the past.

Taxonomy
The species was originally described as Lycopodium dacrydioides by John Gilbert Baker in 1887, based on a variety of African collections. The specific epithet appears to have been bestowed based on the resemblance of the plant to the branches of the Asian conifer Dacrydium.

Wilhelm Herter separated many species (roughly the current Huperzioideae) from Lycopodium; he considered the older genus Huperzia a nomen dubium and erected the genus Urostachys to replace it in 1922. Hermann Nessel published Herter's recombination of the species into Urostachys as U. dacrydioides in his treatise Die Bärlappgewächse in 1939. However, the legitimacy of Huperzia was ultimately upheld, rendering Urostachys unnecessary. R. E. G. Pichi-Sermolli transferred the species to Huperzia as H. dacrydioides in 1968, as part of a study of the ferns and fern allies of Ethiopia and Somalia.

To facilitate the recognition of an expanded Phlegmariurus, forming a clade separate from Huperzia, Ashley Field and Peter D. Bostock transferred the species to that genus as P. dacrydioides.

Distribution and habitat
P. dacrydioides is found throughout mainland sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Sierra Leone east to Ethiopia and southward to the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It is also known from São Tomé and Príncipe and Bioko on the west coast and the Comoros on the east coast. In southern Africa (from Zimbabwe south) it occurs in the mountains on the east side of the continent.

In southern Africa, it typically occurs in evergreen mist forest from 1300 to 1800 m in altitude. It usually grows as an epiphyte on branches, but can occasionally be found dangling from mossy rocks.