Mighton Woods Station 3

Welcome to Station 3, please click on the links below to learn more information.

Interesting sites near this station

Club Moss

Club Moss (Lycopodium clavatum) is a low growing, perennial evergreen herb with needle like or scale-like leaves. Many species have cone-like clusters of small leaves, each with a kidney- shaped spore capsule at its base, and they only produce one kind of spore.

They are called clubmosses because at first glance they resemble mosses and their leaves are shaped like clubs. They live on the forest floor and occur in wet woods, and L. clavatum is rather abundant in Mighton.  It is particularly easy notice after light snow, because it remains green all year.

Individual plants in many species are connected by horizontal stems that run above ground (runner) or below ground (rhizomes).  The actual roots are shallow. They are non-flowering plants,  but are vascular plants (plants with special tissues xylem and phloem to conduct water and food) with an interesting strategy of releasing spores that has only been seen in a science lab.

Interesting Facts

Clubmoss evolved around 400 million years ago as one of the earliest vascular plants. New England has 15 species and 6 genera of clubmoss that belong to the family Lycopodiaeae, which has about 400 species worldwide, but only this species and one other have been detected within the Mighton trail system and in any of the woodlands in Hopkinton.

A powder consisting of dried spores of the common clubmoss was once used in Victorian theatre to produce flame-effects.