Selaginella lepidophylla
The false rose of Jericho is a low, rosette-forming spikemoss from the Chihuahuan Desert and dry Mexican scrub that curls into a tight brown ball when it dries out and unfurls green within hours of rain. At home it does best when you copy its desert rhythm: strong light, short wet spells followed by drying out, rather than being kept permanently in a bowl of water.
Where it grows wild
A terrestrial spikemoss of dry, rocky and sandy ground in desert and semi-desert scrub, on limestone and other rocky slopes and flats in full sun. The flat rosettes, about 5–15 cm across, sit directly on the soil or in pockets among rocks, often in the partial shelter of a stone or shrub, and root only shallowly.
The 10 records with an elevation span 7–1117 m (median 987 m); the measured sites are at 420–1504 m in Big Bend, Coahuila, Baja California Sur and Puebla.
🔒 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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More Selaginella
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 CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.