Ferns

Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes

Ferns and Mosses

When you are out for a hike or paddle in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, you will almost certainly see a wide variety of ferns and mosses. They can be found in the woods and meadows or along the edge of a creek, swamp, or inland lake. It is always fun to be able to identify them by name, so we have posted a few of them on our web site as a reference.
Round-branched Ground Pine Lycopodium dendroideum Family: Club Moss Rootstock creeps deep in the soil. Evergreen erect stems 12-25 cm high are branched upward making it look like a little tree. Leaves are a lustrous dark green. Habitat: Humus-rich woods

Club Moss Colony

Daisy-leaved moonwort Botrychium matricariifolium The plant arises in the spring. The tissue is pale bluish green. It withers in the summer. The half-moon shaped pinnae stand straight out from the rachis. The blade tip is reduced to a few irregular segments. Habitat: grassy meadows and limestone barrens. Wooded slopes over limestone.

Horsetail Equisetum Plants have an extensive underground system of jointed rootstocks bearing roots at nodes. Aerial stems are transversed by hollow tubes, called canals and have ridges often roughened by silica deposits. Their nodes are ringed by crown-like sheaths with teeth representing leaves but without green tissue. Plants are typically 25-50 cm high. Habitat: swamps, stream banks, meadows, and damp woods.

Rattlesnake Fern Botrypus virginiana Plants arise in the spring and become 40-75 cm high. Habitat: Humus-rich woods in to acidic soil. Damp, usually coniferous woods

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