BY W. A. HASWELL, M.A., D.SC. 1029* 



lateral branches of Lycopodium. The sporangium is situated on the 

 side of this special branch which is turned towards the stem, immedi- 

 ately below the point where it gives origin to the two leaves. It 

 has the form of two cones with their bases in apposition and their 

 apices sometimes slightly bent upwards ; the long axis lies pai'allel 

 with the stem. Each cone is a loculus of the sporangium, 

 the two cavities being separated by a delicate transverse septum. 

 Alono- the ventral side runs a longitudinal suture — the lino of 

 dehiscence. When the sporangium dehisces the septum between 

 the two loculi becomes ruptured, and the whole presents the 

 appearance of being unilocular, and of having dehisced by two 

 lateral valves. The wall of the sporangium consists of two layers 

 — the epidermis, the cells of which are cuticularised, but not much 

 thickened, and are elongated in a vei'tical direction, and a layer of 

 small parenchymatous cells. The median septum contains a tine 

 vascular bundle continuous with the central vascular bundle of 

 the branch on which the sporangium is borne. The spores are 

 33oth of an inch in length ; they are oval bodies, compressed, 

 and with one side convex, the other concave. 



The following is the description of Pailutum in the "Flora Aus- 

 traliensis " : — 



"Stems dichotomous, with distant notches bearing minute scale- 

 like leaves, sometimes scarcely prominent, occasionally replaced 

 by equally minute bifid bracts. Spore-cases usually three together, 

 united in a capsule-like sorus, sessile in the axil of or attached to 

 the bracts, nearly globular, 3-lobed, 3-celled, opening loculicidally 

 in 3 valves. Spores minute, uniform." 



And of the species — P. triquetrum, Swartz, 



" Rhizome short, intricately branched. Stems erect, or pendulous 

 when on trees, from 3 or 4 inches to about 1 foot long, repeatedly 

 dichotomous in the upper part, the fertile branches 3-angled, the 

 barren ones usually flattened. Scale-like leaves minute and subu- 

 late, the bracts subtending the spore-cases equally small and dis- 

 tant but forked. Capsule-like sori globular, about 1 line diameter, 

 attached to the bract below the foi'k." 



