Huperzia [SEP] parent taxon
genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, with about 400 species. Some botanists however split "Huperzia" into two genera, Huperzia in the narrow sense including 10-15 species of terrestrial temperate to Arctic species, and the rest in Phlegmariurus, a primarily tropical to subtropical genus of mainly epiphytic species. "Huperzia" and its relatives are included in the family Huperziaceae in some classifications, or alternatively in a more broadly defined Lycopodiaceae in others.
The plants of this genus generally have radial ranks of entire, linear to lanceolate evergreen
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of