Running Ground Cedar

Description:

This is one of my favorite plants - ever green, delicate and so pleasing to the eye and touch! I love to see it blanketing a forest floor in the winter months. I always wondered where the "Running" part came from in it's common names and found a disturbed colony of these with "runner"-like structures visible through the leaf litter. Here's a close up.

Habitat:

Running Ground Cedar grows in forests where soil is somewhat dry and there are a lot of dead leaves on the ground. Sometimes it grows in fields with a lot of shrubs or small trees.

Notes:

Spotted along the Iron Hill Trail of red Top Mountain State Park