284 

 THE CONE OF .sELAGnXELLA PALLIDISSIMA, Sn;. 



BY 



S. L. (^HO.sE, ^[.Sr.. 

 ^IssistiCiit I'rofessor nf liotnruj, (lovenimeut College, l.,''liori:'. 



( With a jihdf.) 



in this paper the writer proijoses to describe the cone of HclaiiiaeUa 

 imlli(lix>>i)na, not so much its internal structure as some points about its 

 external m(»rphology such as its size, and the form of its sporophylls, 

 especially in relation to their protection of sporangia. Besides, a comparison 

 between its sporophylls and those of the cones of some other species of the 

 genus is attempted with regard to their protection of sporangia. 



A paper on ' The Cones of the Genus Selaginella' was published in the 

 'Annals of Botany" in July 1910 by Miss M. G. Sykes and Mr. ^\ . Stiles, 

 where also the ditierent kinds of sporophylls were described in relation to 

 their protection of sporangia, but the peculiar conditions found in the 

 species S. palH(U:>dm(i, were not noted (9). 



The material of 'S'. ^j«//<Vfe.>7H(«, >S. chnjsocaulo'<, and S. chrysorrltizit.'' was 

 collected by Professor Siiiv Kam Kashyap of the Lahore Government 

 College and the writer at Simla at a height between o.UOO and 7,00r) feet 

 above the sea level. Part of it was preserved in alcohol, and the rest 

 dried up. <S'. cerjif/is, S. Eiioneliana, and S. riiiculosa were obtained fresh 

 from the Lahore Botanical Gardens. *V. spinosa, tS. Martfusii and 'S. /./•«?<•<- 

 slt//ia were obtained as preserved material from England. 



General. 



Bakur in his ' Handbook of the Fern-allies' puts the species .S'. paUidis.dina 

 in the Sub-genus 'Homostachys", in which the ordinary leaves are of two 

 kinds and spreading in two planes, and the ' bracts ' also are dimorphous, the 

 smaller • bracts' being in the same plane as 'the smaller more ascending" 

 leaves (1). There is only one more species, <S'. cilian's, in the Sub-genus. 

 The latter is found in Ceylon. Goebel in his ' Organo-sfraphy of Plants' 

 puts these two species in the group ' Platystachyete" with the ' first kind of 

 flowers', the second kind of 'dowers' bemg ' inverse-dorsiventral ' (5). He 

 points out that in the second kind of 'flowers', 'the larger sporophylls 

 wiiich stand upon the upper surface of the axis form a protective cover to 

 the whole flower, and this — as well as the increased capacity of assimila- 

 tion established by these leaves— is, to speak teleologically, the reason 

 why the sporophylls of the upper surface are dili'erent from the foliage 

 leaves of the upper surface.' Thus he explains the rarity of the first kind 

 of ' t1owt>rs' by assuming that the ' inverse-dorsiventral flowers' are more 

 utilitarian. The wide occurrence of the species 'S. pulUdi^sima, therefore, in 

 the North-west Himalayas becomes (juite interesting, especially when com- 

 bined with some abnormal conditi<uis in the cone, and the existence of 

 peculiar vegetative buds at the tip of some branches. 



The stem is nuich inter-matted, 8-1 o cm. in length, and generally creep- 

 ing, only the cones being ascending in position. The main stem is 

 repeatedly forked, the branches being more or less alike. The ^cx)nsecutive 

 leaves of the lower plane are jjlaced at a distance of about 1-7") mm., and 

 those of the upper plane at a distance of about 1-5 mm., from each other. 

 Branched rhizophores are givun off at each dichotomy of the stem. Most 

 of the branches end iu a short swollen bud (Fig. 1. B) while a few are not 

 swollen at all at their tips. Miss Bancroft in her paper on ' Vegetative 



