Selaginella grisea Alston
Lycopodium dregei C. Presl.
Selaginella dregei C.Presl var. hildebrandtiana Hieron.
Bryodesma dregei (C.Presl) Soják

Stems main stem up to 15 x 0.12 cm, creeping, branched, rooting freely, mat-forming; rhizophores spaced along the stem, 2-4 cm long, dark brown. Leaves overlapping around stem and branches, monomorphic, narrowly oblong to lanceolate in outline, margins ciliate, tips tapering to a point, with a curved white hair-like seta, one third to a quarter of the length of the blade, 1.5-3.0 × 0.15-0.3 mm, greyish to greyish-green turning silvery grey when dry. Strobili rarely develop, 4-8 mm long, suberect, with sporophylls terminal in 2 ranks, broader and more lanceolate than the leaves, ciliate and tapering to a point.

S. dregei can be confused with S. caffrorum and S. nivea, these however have leaves with a shorter apical seta (less than a third of the leaf blade) and sporophylls that are arranged in 4 ranks.
Crouch et all. (2011) seperate S. grisea from S. dregei, stating that apical leaf setae are about 1/3 the length of the leaf in S. dregei which is more robust with erect branches from a prostrate stem rather than being entirely prostrate; the marginal cilia are stronger and closer in S. grisea.

dregei: named after Johann Franz Drège (1794-1881), German horticulturalist, botanical collector and explorer who worked extensively in South Africa.

Forming dense mats occupying flat sheetrock in open and under scrub, in deciduous woodland and montane areas with rocky outcrops.

See African distribution.

Angola, Botswana, Dem. Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania , Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Lithophytic, terrestrial.