马尾杉属 ma wei shan shu

Lycopodium sect. Phlegmaria Baker ex Pritzel in H. G. A. Engler and K. Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam 1(4): 599. 1902

Plants epiphytic, medium-sized. Mature stem pendulous or ascending, 15-100 cm, multiple times dichotomously branched, upper portion of stem and branchlets often without bulbils. Leaves lustrous or not lustrous, lanceolate, ovate, or scalelike, leathery or thinly leathery, margin entire. Strobili abruptly becoming much smaller than sterile branches or branchlets or rarely similar in size. Sporophylls and trophophylls dimorphic or almost homomorphic. Sporangia in axils of sporophylls of upper portion of stem or branchlets, reniform, dehiscing from 2 valves. Spore sides at equator concave with acute or blunt angles.

The presumed basionym, Lycopodium sect. Phlegmariurus Herter, was illegitimate, as it included a ser. Euphlegmariam (see p. 36: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/215660), which included L. phlegmaria L., the type of the earlier L. sect. Phlegmaria Baker ex Pritz. (https://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/idviewer/10922/601), the name that ought to have been adopted by Herter (Art. 52.1). So there is no basionym. In other words, Phlegmariurus is a nom. & stat. nov. for L. sect. Phlegmaria, and also for “L. sect. Phlegmariurus”.

About 250 species: tropics extending to subtropics; 22 species (eight endemic) in three sections in China.