Selaginella densa
Selaginella densa, the prairie or Rocky Mountain spikemoss, forms tight grey-green mats on dry, sunny, windswept ground across western North America. It covers shortgrass prairie and exposed alpine rock, and it survives drying out completely. It is the opposite of a humid-terrarium plant: grow it as a hardy alpine in a trough or crevice garden.
Where it grows wild
Dry, open, rocky or sandy soils. It dominates much shortgrass prairie on the Great Plains and grows on windy, snow-free rock outcrops and alpine ridges in the Rockies and Cascades. It dries out between rains and revives when wetted.
From the Great Plains (roughly 600–1,500 m) up to alpine summits above 3,500 m in the Rockies. No altitude data was measured for this profile.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its Public domain licence, unmodified.