Holloway. — Studies in the New Zealand Species of Lycopodium. 81 



Goebel (1905) found that broken-off portions of the crown of lobes 

 of the prothallus of L. inundatum developed into new prothalli. These 

 adventitious prothalli rooted themselves to the soil with rhizoids, and pro- 

 duced lobes and sexual organs. 



In the New Zealand species L. Billardieri, which is very similar to the 

 other epiphytic species, L. Phlegmasia, noted above, Miss Edgerley (1915, 

 p. 105) states that the branches on the prothalli sometimes die off from 

 behind and form new individuals. She found " some prothalli surrounded 

 by numerous detached branches whose rhizoids were interlaced with those 

 of the parent prothallus."* 



The long-drawn-out prothalli of L. ramidosnm (Holloway, 1916, 

 •pp. 269-71) are suggestive of the same methods of vegetative propaga- 

 tion — i.e., by the isolation of portions of the prothallus as new individuals 

 through the decay of the intermediate regions. I have not, however, actually 

 observed that this has taken place. Some of those prothalli found by me 

 showed several tubercular swellings along their length, each of which was 

 infested by a fungus and bore a group of rhizoids. In close association 

 with some of these swellings were groups of filamentous lobes at the base 

 of which archegonia were developed {ibid., figs. 32c and 32d, p. 269). It 

 will thus be seen that if through injury to the prothallus or by the dying- 

 away of an intermediate region of it a portion should become detached 

 from the whole, that portion could still be possessed of all the essential 

 organs for an independent existence and for the development of a young 

 plant. 



Treub (1886) was of the opinion that the majority of the prothalli of 

 L. Phlegmasia found by him had been produced adventitiously from older 

 prothalli, and that the germination of the spore was slow and the production 

 of prothalli direct from spores consequently somewhat rare. I have shown 

 elsewhere (1916, pp. 262-64) that in the case of the terrestrial New Zealand 

 species the formation of prothalli from spores is by no means as uncommon 

 as has been hitherto supposed of the Lycopodiaceae, although this may 

 very possibly be due to the temperate climate and abundant rainfall in 

 those parts of this country where Lycopods abound. Vegetative reproduc- 

 tion of the prothallus does not seem to be as common in the case of other 

 species as it is in the epiphytic species of Lycopodium, but the fact that it 

 has been noticed in certain abnormal cases in several other species shows 

 that it may still be found to be a common method of propagation in the 

 genus when certain conditions are present.! 



* The present writer has recently found the prothalli of L. Billardieri var. gracile. 

 In some instances these showed a central more or less bulky region (on which were 

 paraphyses and archegonia), with several branches, either long and slender or short 

 and club-shaped, arising from it. But the majority of the prothalli found consisted 

 of a single stout or slender branch of greater or lesser length, on which paraphyses and 

 antheridia occurred in places, and on which also several short club-shaped vegetative 

 branches had arisen. These latter prothalli were invariably broken off short at one 

 or at both ends. They had probably originated by being detached from older prothalli. 

 Not a few quite short club-shaped vegetative branches (densely packed with the fungal 

 element, &c.) broken off at one end were also dissected out. (Out of thirty or forty 

 prothalli found, only three undoubtedly showed the original end of the prothallus 

 intact. ) 



t In Part I of these Studies (Holloway, 1916, p. 274) I figured several prothalli of 

 L. scariosum in which a pseudo-branching had taken place. These prothalli were of 

 unusual size, and their peculiar form, in which the two halves of the prothallus were 

 separated by a constriction, suggests the possibility of the separation of the parent 

 prothallus into two or more individuals capable of separate existence. 



