Species
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Selaginella kraussiana (Kunze) A.Braun

African Clubmoss, Forest Selaginella, Kraus's Clubmoss, Krauss Spikemoss

Climate known 70 photographs Tropical foliage plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Selaginella kraussiana is a species of vascular plant in the family Selaginellaceae. It is referred to by the common names Krauss' spikemoss, Krauss's clubmoss, or African clubmoss, and is found naturally in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and in Macaronesia. It is sometimes given the misnomer of "peacock fern", due to its lacy leaf structure, despite having no relation to actual ferns; rather, it belongs to the very ancient lineage of plants known as the clubmosses.

Text from Wikipedia, “Selaginella kraussiana”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Selaginella

Selaginella, also known as spikemosses or lesser clubmosses, is a genus of lycophyte. It is usually treated as the only genus in the family Selaginellaceae, with over 750 known species.

Text from Wikipedia, “Selaginella”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Selaginellaceae
Described by
(Kunze) A.Braun
Native to
Azores, Canary Is., Madeira +21
Wild records
967 in range· 796 open

At a glance

Warmest month
22°C
Aug, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1260mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Dec 169 mm (CHELSA)
Light
13–42DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Selaginella, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a rainy season, September to March in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer. Habitat rain 1260 mm a year, wettest December at 169 mm, driest July at 36 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 9.3 °C habitat night).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Didiclis kraussiana (Kunze) Rothm.; Didiclis poulteri (Hort.Veitch) Rothm.; Gymnogynum kraussianum (Kunze) Weakley; Lycopodioides azorica (Baker) Kuntze; Lycopodioides canescens (Fée) Kuntze and 14 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Selaginella, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a rainy season, September to March in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer.

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a rainy season with no name: 70% of the year's rain (934 mm of 1260 mm) falls in September to March, whose mean temperature, 16.2 °C, is within half a degree of the year's, 16.7 °C, so it is neither the cooler nor the warmer part of the year. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1260 mm a year, wettest December at 169 mm, driest July at 36 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1260 mm a year at the habitat, 934 mm of it September to March. Wettest month December at 169 mm, driest July at 36 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 920 mm to 1971 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 42 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 9.3 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 9.3 °C, the absolute minimum 7.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 21.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 13.1 °C in February (across the envelope cells 10.4 °C to 17.0 °C), warmest day 21.7 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 9.3 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by the genus Selaginella, which is reliably one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 63 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 16 °C in Feb to 22 °C in Aug; mean night from 13 °C in Feb to 19 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 1260 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 228 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 7.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 21.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°21.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)7.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 13–42RH 63–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 228 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C16 / 14–2516 / 13–2616 / 13–2516 / 14–2417 / 15–2219 / 17–2121 / 17–2222 / 18–2322 / 19–2320 / 18–2418 / 16–2417 / 14–25
Night °C14 / 11–1713 / 10–1713 / 11–1613 / 11–1514 / 9–1616 / 6–1818 / 6–2019 / 7–2118 / 8–2116 / 10–1915 / 11–1714 / 11–16
Rain mm126 / 77–230125 / 72–225133 / 90–19892 / 58–20984 / 23–16358 / 17–9736 / 15–6456 / 18–87102 / 29–141133 / 77–215146 / 105–222169 / 93–248
DLI15 / 12–3921 / 17–3828 / 25–3633 / 26–3638 / 23–4141 / 21–4342 / 22–4438 / 26–4031 / 29–3723 / 20–3717 / 13–3913 / 10–39
RH %65 / 61–6964 / 60–6965 / 61–6964 / 60–7065 / 56–7165 / 53–7266 / 53–7264 / 54–7263 / 56–7164 / 60–7064 / 61–7065 / 61–70

Each figure is the median across the 228 grid cells holding the 959 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1043:3084 (37.825, -25.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 7.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 9.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 21.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 228 distinct grid cells holding the 959 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1043:3084 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 38.00_-25.625, lapse-corrected +463 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 486 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeAzores, Canary Is., Madeira, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gulf of Guinea Is., Rwanda, Zaïre, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Cape Provinces, KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland, Northern Provinces· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Netherlands, Corse, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Sicilia, Yugoslavia, China South-Central, China Southeast, Assam, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Norfolk Is., New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Chatham Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Hawaii, California, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Panama, Jamaica, Venezuela, Brazil South
Kew's description“subshrub” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker38.506, -28.299 · in the densest population, 494 records (51% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 967 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 796 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 712 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 8 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 967 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Selaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussianaSelaginella kraussiana

Photographs: (c) Nicola van Berkel, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Elias, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Tim Park, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Selaginella kraussiana, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Xyloglucan Endotransglucosylase Activity Loosens a Plant Cell Wall
Vicky Van Sandt, Dmitry Suslov, Jean‐Pierre Verbelen, Kris Vissenberg (2007) · Annals of Botany
Growth from two transient apical initials in the meristem of Selaginella kraussiana
C. J. O. Harrison, M. Rezvani, Jane A. Langdale (2007) · Development
The ability of land plants to synthesize glucuronoxylans predates the evolution of tracheophytes
Ameya Kulkarni, María J. Peña, Utku Avcı, Koushik Mazumder (2011) · Glycobiology
The Huperzia selago Shoot Tip Transcriptome Sheds New Light on the Evolution of Leaves
Anastasiia I. Evkaikina, Lidija Berke, Marina A. Romanova, Estelle Proux‐Wéra (2017) · Genome Biology and Evolution
Evolutionary Patterns in the Auxin Metabolism of Green Plants
A. Ester Sztein, Jerry D. Cohen, Todd J. Cooke (2000) · International Journal of Plant Sciences
Identification of WOX Family Genes in Selaginella kraussiana for Studies on Stem Cells and Regeneration in Lycophytes
Yachao Ge, Jie Liu, Minhuan Zeng, Jianfeng He (2016) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Models of Cell Tetrads and Clones in Meristematic Cell Layers
Jacqueline Lück, Aristid Lindenmayer, Hermann B. Lück (1988) · Botanical Gazette
A Role of TDIF Peptide Signaling in Vascular Cell Differentiation is Conserved Among Euphyllophytes
Yuki Hirakawa, John L. Bowman (2015) · Frontiers in Plant Science

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 82 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.