Selaginella acanthonotaUnderw.

spiny spikemoss

WFO wfo-0001110669 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. a Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / 2017-04-09 / obs. 6962948
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Douglas Goldman
fig. b Douglas Goldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 155014111
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. c Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137010083
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. d Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137082601
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. e Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 6964135
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Douglas Goldman
fig. f Douglas Goldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 155013551
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Douglas Goldman
fig. g Douglas Goldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 155014027
Selaginella acanthonota, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. h Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165216788

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 4 botanical countries

Regions where Selaginella acanthonota is native: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina FloridaGeorgiaNorth CarolinaSouth Carolina
Native distribution of Selaginella acanthonota, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Georgia GEO
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 9 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Bryodesma acanthonota (Underw.) Skoda
  • Bryodesma funiforme (Van Eselt.) Škoda
  • Bryodesma humifusum (Van Eselt.) Škoda
  • Selaginella arenicola subsp. acanthonota (Underw.) R.M.Tryon
  • Selaginella arenicola var. acanthonota (Underw.) Waterf.
  • Selaginella floridana Maxon
  • Selaginella funiformis Van Eselt.
  • Selaginella humifusa Van Eselt.
  • Selaginella rupestris var. acanthonota Clute

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.