Princes Pine and Crow's Foot (pictured bottom, looking a bit more stringy than the top pictured Princes Pine) belong to the orders Lycopodiales, and Selaginellales respectfully.

Forests of giant clubmosses that reached 100 feet in height encircled our planet many millions of years ago. Today these ancient relatives of the clubmosses constitute, in their petrified form, an important source of coal. Eventually the primeaval giants evolved into its present forms: in general; a smallish plant with a ground hugging stem that grows up to 4 feet long. The botanical name of the top right picture (Lycopodium clavatum L.) means "club-shaped wolf's claw," a refference both to the plant's club-shaped spore cases and to an imagined resemblance between the plant's root and a wolf's claw.

The spores are a fine yellowish powder which is highly flamible- hence its old name vegetable sulfur. Stage designers once employed the powder to create stage lighting for plays, and in the pioneering days of photography the spores served as a flash powder. In recent days it has a use as a covering for pills or suppositories; in explosives, pyrotechnics, as a dry parting compound in foundry work and nameplate castings. The yellow powder was once used as an absorbant dusting powder in sugery (see uses... for side effects) and as a baby powder. Both the spores and the whole plant figured in medications once prescribed for various ailments such as kidney stones and urinary tract infections.

Uses:
Any external use has a possible side effect of a granulomatosus reraction in wounds or exposed skin. The spores are known to be an irritant to mucous membranes, thus any medical use cannot be recommended.
However:
Because of the Selagine content it is grown commercially in Poland (Europe) and the powdered plant is used as an insecticide...
We sell this item "Natural Insecticide" every spring. Email us for dates when we ship and prices. mike@iceweb.net

Another relative of ferns Horsetails