Club Moss

Scientific Names

Lycopodium clavatum L.
Clubmoss family

Common Names

Common clubmoss
Foxtail
Ground pine
Lycopod
Running clubmoss
Staghorn
Vegetable sulfur
Wolf claw
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Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Club moss is a low perennial plant; a moss-like evergreen, 3-15 inches high with creeping runners; the creeping, slender stem roots all along its length and sends up branches bearing tiny, stiff, linear, green leaves tipped with a white, soft, hairlike bristle. The yellow spores, with 1-6 strobiles, are borne on 1 or 2 club-like spikes growing on a long footstalk from the end of a branch.
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Where Found

Found in dry, coniferous forests and acid soils all over the world. In North America; Canada south to New York, North Carolina mountains; west to Wisconsin, Washington.
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Medicinal Properties

Hemostatic, vulnerary
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Legends, Myths and Stories

A related Chinese species in the clubmoss family is being researched as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
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Uses

Native Americans, as well as Europeans, have used club moss spores as a powder to stop nosebleed, post-partum pains, fever, diarrhea, dysentery, gastric sedative, aphrodisiac, styptic, rheumatism, diaper rash, tangled or matted hair with vermin, herpes, eczema, dermatitis in folds of skin, erysipelas, and bleeding from wounds. The powder has been used to absorb fluids from damaged tissues in various injuries. At one time, it coated pills to prevent the pills from sticking together when packed. Native Americans also used to sprinkle the powder made from this herb on wounds to stop bleeding.
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How Sold

Powder of this herb is sold in health food stores and herb shops. Use on minor skin wounds.
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Warning

The plant itself is poisonous, but the spores are not poisonous.

This clubmoss (L. clavatum) contains a toxic alkaloid.
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Bibliography

American Folk Medicine, by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1973

Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke., Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000

Earl Mindell's Herb Bible, by Earl Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D., Simon & Schuster/Fireside, Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

How Indians Use Wild Plants for Food, Medicine & Crafts, by Frances Densmore, Dover Publications, Inc., 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014, first printed by the United States Government Printing Office, Washington, in 1928, this Dover edition 1974

The Nature Doctor, by Dr. H.C.A. Vogel; Keats Publishing, Inc., 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876. Copyright Verlag A. Vogel, Teufen (AR) Switzerland 1952, 1991

Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, Editor in Chief, New World Dictionaries: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023, 1984

The Rodale Herb Book, edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. Emmaus, PA, 18049., 1974