HoLLOWAY. — Studies in the New Zealand Species of Lycopodium. 261 



L. volubile. 



I have been able to find young plants and prothalli of this common 

 species in several different localities in both the North and South Islands, 

 in some cases in abundance. Several young plants and one very large 

 prothallus were dug out of a clay bank at Kaiaka, North Auckland. 

 Between sixty and seventy prothalli were unearthed from an old clay 

 cutting at the edge of the forest near Henderson. Some of these were 

 very young, the smallest being about 1 mm. in size. In several locali- 

 ties in Nelson also I have found both young plants and prothalli, 

 the habitat being in some cases a disturbed damp clay soil in the open, 

 and in others a damp spot on the forest-floor. Old plants on several 

 of these occasions were not to be seen in the vicinity of the young plants. 

 Probably they had died out, or had been destroyed when the land was 

 cleared. In not a few other parts of New Zealand I have seen young 

 prothalli al plants of this species both in southern-beech forest where the 

 soil consists of decaying vegetable material and in shaded clay situations 

 on open hillsides. L. volubile would seem to propagate itself quite com- 

 monly by the dispersal and gei-mination of its spores. The prothalli are 

 buried at a depth of ^3 cm. Rarely they occurred at the surface, and 

 then the upper part of the prothallus is a bright green. In an old gold- 

 mining claim near Hokitika I found several prothalli both of this species 

 and of L. scariosum. In both cases they were of an abnormally large 

 size, and the young plants attached were as much as 6 in. in length and 

 several times branched, and bore from one to three large adventitious 

 roots. 



L. ramulosum. 



During the month of April, 1916, I found the prothalli and young 

 plants of this species growing in an old shingle-pit on the side of the 

 main road between Waimea and Kumara, Westland. In the near 

 vicinity four species of Lycopodium occurred — viz., L. volubile, 

 L. scariosum, L. fastigiatum, and L. ramulosum. This particular 

 shingle-pit was in a damp but warm situation. There was an abund- 

 ance of young plants of L. ramulosum of all stages of growth, and up 

 to the present I have been able to dissect out from the mossy turves 

 which I gathered twenty-four prothalli. The moss was a short brown 

 variety, and when dissected was seen to be full of slime fungus and 

 of several varieties of microscopic algae, with which the rhizoids of the 

 prothalli were closely intermatted. 



L. fastigiatum. 



In one locality on a high exposed ridge near Mount Oxford, 

 Canterbury, I have discovered sixty-one prothalli of this species during 

 three years. Prothalli and young plants of both L. fastigiatum and 

 L. scartosum were growing on the leeward side of the highest point on 

 this ridge in patches of moss and Helichrysum filicaule on clayey soil 

 amongst rocks and boulders. The area in which the young plants 

 occurred was very limited in extent, nor were they to be seen elsewhere 

 along the ridge. The adult plants of these two species grew abundantly 

 on Mount Oxford, which lies a mile or two to the windward of this ridge, 

 but nowhere have I found them on the ridge itself. The great majority 

 of the prothalli of Z. fastigiatum were obtained from turves of clayey 

 soil which came from the lower sides of embedded rocks and boulders. 



