Lycopodium powder

Lycopodium powder being used to demonstrate the power of a dust explosion
Spore houses from the lycopodium plant drying for harvesting spores
From left: Lycopodium spore house before drying, dried spore house and dried spore house emptied for spores

Lycopodium powder is a yellow-tan dust-like powder, consisting of the dry spores of clubmoss plants, or various fern relatives. When it is mixed with air, the spores are highly flammable and are used to create dust explosions as theatrical special effects. The powder was traditionally used in physics experiments to demonstrate phenomena such as Brownian motion.