GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - I was quite intrigued about the little plant that appeared in the shady part of our garden. 

Somehow the spores of *Selaginella kraussiana (Krauss' spike moss) found a suitable home in a flower bed that is shaded all year, where it is moist and protected from the wind. 

Of interest is where the spores came from as Selaginella kraussiana normally occurs from the Tsitsikamma Forests in the southern Eastern Cape, along the higher-rainfall and milder lower-lying eastern parts of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal to Swaziland, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, mostly along streambanks, moist cliffs, at waterfalls, and along forest margins, but also frequently on the forest floor away from water.

It may have originated from a cultivated plant somewhere in Knysna, but certainly not in our area as two years ago the fire destroyed most of the local gardens leaving them barren and desolate.

Spike mosses and club mosses are often referred to as "living fossils" as they look very similar to their relatives that lived 370 to 400-million years ago. However, present-day species differ dramatically in size, and are usually less than 1m tall, whereas their now-extinct ancestors reached 40m or more in height.

Spike mosses are long-lived plants with a moderate growth rate. They grow on the soil, on rocks and rarely also as low-level epiphytes (a plant that grows on another plant but is not parasitic on it). The prostrate stems form loose mats, rooting at the branching points of the stems which are unequally branched. They make excellent ground covers in dark shade but also lovely container plants for indoors. This is best done in smaller containers positioned in areas receiving good but not direct sunlight. As with cultivation outdoors, the humus-rich growing medium should be kept moist at all times.

* Named after Christian Ferdinand von Krauss (1812-1914), who became director of the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart, Germany in 1856. Krauss initially practised as a pharmacist but then studied mineralogy, zoology and chemistry. He travelled and collected in South Africa from May 1838 to April 1840. Several SA plants species are named after Krauss.

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