Holloway. — Studies in the New Zealand Species of Lycopodium. 83 



be more or less widely separated from those which belong to the other. 

 The comparative study of the different species and the correlation of their 

 characters is undoubtedly yielding indications of the different lines along 

 which the genus has evolved, and also of the degrees of relationship exist- 

 ing between them : and such characters as habit of growth and stelar 

 anatomy must also be taken into account in the construction of a natural 

 classification of the Lycopodiaceae. 



III. Bulbils on Adult Plants. 



Vegetative reproduction by means of bulbils borne on the stem is well 

 known in L. Selago and certain other allied species. These bulbils are 

 stated to be modified leafy branches. 



While searching for young plants of L. cernuum near Henderson, Auckland, 

 some years ago, I found on a damp mossy bank a number of very young 

 plantlets of this species which had obviously been produced vegetatively. 

 Mature plants were also growing on the bank immediately above. It 

 would seem that the plantlets had originated as bulbils on these older plants, 

 but I was not able to ascertain on what part of them they had been borne. 

 The plantlets were simply resting upon and entangled in the ends of the 

 moss-branches, and were not in any way anchored by their rhizoids to 

 the humus. The youngest plantlets consisted of a basal tuberous portion, 



3 / / / // 



Figs. 1-3. — Lycopodium cernuum. Bulbils from adult stems. X 20. 



which was either round or more or less elongated, surmounted by one or 

 two protophylls (fig. 1). Many of them, which showed several protophylls, 

 were of a drawn-up spindly form, as if the stem-apex had been initiated 

 very early and its upward growth had been rapid, whilst the basal portion 

 was more feebly developed (fig. 2). It is possible that these individuals 

 may not have been detached from the parent plant till they had attained 

 this extent of growth. In a few instances the basal portion of plantlets 

 was extended horizontally, as is usual in the sexually developed young 

 plants of L. laterale and L. ramulosum, and as sometimes occurs also in the 

 corresponding case of L. cernuum (Holloway, 1916, pp. 287-89). One or two 

 of these plantlets bore as many as six protophylls (fig. 3) without a stem- 

 apex having been initiated. The basal portion in all cases appeared opaque 



