90 



Transactions. 



VII. Vegetative Keproduction of the Protocormous Ehizome. 



In the two New Zealand species L. laterale and L. ramulosum the 

 " protocorm " of the young sexually produced plant elongates sideways 

 and attains a considerable size before a stem-apex is differentiated on its 

 dorsal side. This protocormous rhizome plays a much larger and more im- 

 portant part than does the simple protocorm of L. cernuum. It constitutes 

 the plant-body for a whole season, and may even branch. It appears also 

 that in both L. laterale and L. ramulosum it is able to reproduce itself vege- 

 tatively. I found one branched protocorm of the former species, on each of 

 the branches of which a stem-axis had been initiated (Holloway, 1916, fig. 67). 



Figs. 21, 22. — Lycopodium ramulosum. Branched protocormous rhizomes with two or 



more stem-axes. X 6. 

 Figs. 23, 24. — Lycopodium ramulosum. Protocormous rhizomes with bulbils attached. 



X 6. 



In Part I of these present Studies I briefly described one young plant of 

 L. ramulosum at the growing end of whose prococormous rhizome two 

 young bulbils were developing (ibid., p. 285). Since then I have found 

 eight to ten additional instances of the vegetative reproduction of the 

 rhizome of this latter species. From the material mentioned above as having 

 been obtained near the Mikonui Eiver, Westland, I dissected out several 

 young plants whose rhizome was branched. In these instances the rhizome 

 was generally an old and abnormally large one. The growing end had 

 given rise to two more or less equal branches, which were green in colour 

 and bore a number of young protophylls, whilst the old first-formed portion 

 was brown and surmounted by only a few old brown and decayed proto- 



