400 WILD FLOWEES OF 



bearing wind, on a November eve. Even now a 

 monotonous extent of heath and inoss extends weari- 

 somely for miles and miles unvaried but by the Bil- 

 berry or Crowberry, or here and there beautified by the 

 orange leaves and red stalks of a patch of NartTiecium 

 -made sterner still by abundant masses of the stiff 

 dull-looking squarrose Rush (Juncus squarrosus) , and 

 ruinous mounds of black peat. Tet even here a 

 searching hand might pick out some curious object 

 worthy of attention, such as the Lycopodium clavatum 

 or alpinwn. The former is something like a branch of 

 Norway fir creeping along the ground, and extending 

 its branches in a proliferous manner for many feet, 

 still by its runners holding so fast to the mosses and 

 heaths among which it stealthily advances, that it 

 requires a little patience to obtain a perfect unbroken 

 specimen, which, however, with its bright green im- 

 bricated incurved leaves and ascending pale yellow 

 spikes of fructification in pairs, makes a very orna- 

 mental appearance, especially if transferred to the 

 head or neck of the wanderer. Even the rustics have 

 not passed it by unnoticed, for as WOEDSWOETH says 

 of his Cumberland shepherd boys 



tf With that plant which in our dale 

 They call Stag-horn, or Fox's-tail, 

 Their rusty hats they trim : 

 And thus, as happy as the day 

 Those shepherds wear the time away." 



The Fir Club Moss (^Lycopodium Selago*), a stiff 

 upright species, with the capsules in the axills of the 

 common leaves, is an inhabitant of heathy and boggy 

 places. The Lycopodice belong to the Cryptogamia, or 

 Acotyledonous division of the Natural System. 



