7 - Ferns & Club-Mosses

Two more common features of Kemp’s old-growth, hemlock-hardwood forest are ferns and club-mosses. Ferns thrive in shady, cool, damp areas. You will see several ferns on your hike, including Cinnamon Fern, Interrupted Fern, Oak Fern, Long Beech Fern and Maidenhair Fern. Club-mosses, or Lycopodium, are long-living evergreen plants whose main stem creeps over the soil surface and gives rise to many upright branches. Three species of Lycopodium found here are commonly known as groundpine, shining club-moss and stiff club-moss. You may see small cone like structures on the groundpine – these are strobili and are what produces spores from which club-mosses reproduce.

7N 45° 50.444'W 89° 40.526'