Diphasiastrum Holub; Palhinhaea Franco & Vasconcellos.

Plants small to large. Main stems creeping or erect, sparsely or densely leafy. Lateral branches ascending or erect, once to multiple times dichotomously branched, terete, complanate or subcomplanate. Leaves on lateral branches and branchlets spirally arranged, subulate, triangular, lanceolate, or linear, papery to leathery, midrib indistinct, base cuneate, decurrent, adnate, sessile, margin entire or toothed, apex acuminate. Strobili solitary or aggregated, erect or nodding, terete, sessile or stalked. Sporophylls different from trophophylls, ovate or broadly lanceolate, imbricate, margin membranous and irregularly toothed, apex caudate.

The following taxon is excluded from the present treatment, pending further research: Lycopodium clavatum Linnaeus var. divaricatum Raciborski (Bull. Inst. Bot. Buitenzorg 1: 244. 1898), described from Jiangxi (Pingxiang).

About 40-50 species: widely distributed in temperate and tropical climates and tropical mountains; 14 species (two endemic) in China.