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Plant

Lycopodium Prickly Thrift

Acantholimon lycopodioides

Lycopodium Prickly Thrift (Acantholimon lycopodioides) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · India · Resized

Lycopodium Prickly Thrift (Acantholimon lycopodioides) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · India · Resized

Scientific name
Acantholimon lycopodioides
Family
Plumbaginaceae, order Caryophyllales
Group
Plant

A prickly green cushion that thrives where little else can.

  • Spot it Dense spiny cushions with tiny pink flowers.
  • Home Dry, rocky mountain slopes of Central Asia and the north-west Himalaya.
  • Food web Its flowers feed hardy mountain insects.
  • Why it matters Its tight cushions trap dust and moisture, slowly building thin soil and giving shelter to tiny insects in harsh, windy places.
Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • IndiaDevendra Bhardwaj has 2 verified records of this species on iNaturalist in 2018.[20]

Sources

  1. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  2. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  3. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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