Creeping jenny

Description

Diphasiastrum complanatum,common names groundcedar creeping jenny, or northern running-pine, is a species of clubmoss native to dry coniferous forests in colder northerly parts of the world. Under the original name Lycopodium complanatum, this was an inclusive superspecies that included a number of other species now known to be biologically separate. As the species is currently recognized, it has been found in Canada, Greenland, northern and central Europe including montane regions of the British Isles, Russia, China, Japan, India, Thailand, and the northern United States. Diphasiastrum complanatum is a perennial herb spreading by means of stolons that run along the surface of the ground. Above-ground stems tend to branch within the same geometric plane (hence the specific epithet "complanatum," meaning "same plane"). Strobili are vertical borne in groups of up to 4 at the ends of some of the branches. Diphasiastrum is a genus of clubmosses in the plant family Lycopodiaceae. In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I), it is placed in the subfamily Lycopodioideae. It is closely related to the genus Lycopodium, and some botanists treat it within a broad view of that genus as a section, Lycopodium sect. Complanata. Some species superficially resemble diminutive gymnosperms and have been given common names such as ground-pine or ground-cedar. There are 16 species, and numerous natural hybrids in the genus; many of the hybrids are fertile, allowing their occurrence to become frequent, sometimes more so than the parent species. The basal chromosome count for this genus is n=23, which is distinctively different from other lycopods The genus has a subcosmopolitan distribution, in much of the Northern Hemisphere, south in mountains to South America (reaching furthest south in Jujuy Province, northwest Argentina), New Guinea and the Marquesas Islands in the Pacific Ocean, but confined to climates with high humidity for most or all of the year (or, in cool climates, protected by snow cover in winter).