Lycopodium afromontanum (Pic.Serm.) Kornas
Phlegmariurus afromontanus (Pic.Serm.) A.R.Field & Bostock

Roots bundled, dichotomously branched, yellow or flesh-coloured. Plant up to 40-150 cm long. Sterile parts: stems forked up to 6 times, not exceeding 2 mm thick at the base, densely leafy but clearly visible between the leaves, 0.6 mm diameter; leaves 11-15 x 2-2.5 mm, narrowly lanceolate in outline, base shortly narrowed and decurrent, apex acute, entire, soft, sometimes a little twisted, making an angle of about 45º with the axis which carries them, both sides very pale, olive or yellow-green; midrib marked at least on the basal half of the dorsal surface. Fertile parts: up to three times as long as the sterile portions, stems forked 2-4 times, long, curved, slender, 0.5 mm in diameter, closer spaced than in the sterile parts; leaves very different from sterile leaves, distinctly and irregularly discrete, erect and open, thin papery, wrinkled on the outside; lower bracts ovate in outline, acute, up to 2.5-3 mm long, two or three times longer than the sporangia ; middle and upper bracts broadly ovate, acute, 2-2.5 mm long, twice as long as the sporangia or in wel developed specimens 1.2-2.5 mm long, broadly ovate to subrounded, not or hardly extending beyond the sporangia; sporangia thick, straw-like, in the lower half covered with leaves.

Some autors regard this as a synonym of H. ophioglossoides.
Difference seems to be that H. afromontana is longer, leaves thinner in texture, more spaced and at an angle of 45°; fertile part longer, slenderer and with a great number of forks.

Moist mountain forests, secundary forest, tea plantations.

See African distribution.

Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania , Uganda.

Epiphytic, lithophytic, terrestrial.