Club Moss
Parts Usually Used
Spores
Description of Plant(s) and Culture
Club moss is a low perennial plant; a moss-like evergreen, 3-15 inches high with creeping runners; the creeping, slender stem roots all along its length and sends up branches bearing tiny, stiff, linear, green leaves tipped with a white, soft, hairlike bristle. The yellow spores, with 1-6 strobiles, are borne on 1 or 2 club-like spikes growing on a long footstalk from the end of a branch.
Where Found
Found in dry, coniferous forests and acid soils all over the world. In North America; Canada south to New York, North Carolina mountains; west to Wisconsin, Washington.
Medicinal Properties
Hemostatic, vulnerary
Legends, Myths and Stories
A related Chinese species in the clubmoss family is being researched as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Uses
Historically, Native Americans and Europeans used club moss spores as a powder for nosebleeds, postpartum discomfort, fever, diarrhea, dysentery, rheumatism, eczema, and skin fold irritation. Herbalists employed the powdered spores as a styptic to stem bleeding from wounds and as an absorbent application for damaged tissues. The material was also traditionally used as a gastric sedative, as an aphrodisiac, and to address matted hair associated with vermin.
Additionally, pharmacists historically utilized the powder as a coating to prevent prepared pills from adhering to one another during storage.
How Sold
Powder or extract of this herb is sold in health food stores and herb shops.
Warning
The plant itself is poisonous, but the spores are not poisonous. This clubmoss (L. clavatum) contains a toxic alkaloid.
Bibliography
American Folk Medicine , by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1973 Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants , by Steven Foster and James A. , Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000 The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. , 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014, first printed by the United States Government Printing Office, Washington, in 1928, this Dover edition 1974 The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine , by Dr.
A. , 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876. Copyright Verlag A. , 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023 The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book) , edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. , 1974