321 



©rigiual Mxiitlt^. 



ON LYCOPODIUM COMPLANATUM, L., AS A 



BKITISH PLANT. 



By G. C. Deuce, F.L.S. 



(Tab. 233.) 



In the autumn of 1881 Mr. Bolton King gave me a specimen of 

 a Lycopodium which had heen gathered in Gloucestershn-e by the 

 Eev. H. P. Eeader, and referred to L. alpinum, but which, even in 

 the scrap of a barren branch given to me, seemed scarcely to belong 

 to that species. I placed it doubtfully in my herbarium under L. 

 alpinum; pressure of business caused me to neglect the matter till 

 this spring, when the receipt of a specimen of L. cumplanatum — 

 which had been collected near Massachusetts, North America, by 

 the Rev. A. Morong — from Mr. A. Bennett again recalled the 

 Gloucestershire specimen. On applying to Mr. Reader he kindly 

 sent me a fertile specimen, which, although differing from the 

 American plant in the peduncles being so short as to make the 

 spikes sessile, yet was obviously not L. alpinum, from its flattened 

 suberect branches and general habit. 



Having consulted the herbaria at Oxford, the British Museum, 

 and Kew, there seemed to me little doubt that the plant was true 

 L. complanatum, There were specimens in the Kew herbarium 

 from South America with similar sessile spikes. Mr. J. G. Baker 

 was good enough to examine it, and had no doubt as to its being 

 L. complanatum ; and he considered the length of peduncle as of 

 little specific value. 



We may glance at the previous records of this Lycopod as a 

 British plant. In the ' Compendium of the Cybele Britannica,' 

 p. 604, Mr. Watson thus refers to L. compkmatum. : — ** Near 

 Bramshot, Hants ? Worcestershire? Error? Bab. Man., ed. 6, 

 p. 445. Leefe msc." In Babington's 'Manual,' edit. 6th and 

 7th, it is placed in brackets, and mentioned as having been 

 found at Bramshot, Hants; but the author doubted its being 

 correctly named. In Hooker's ' Student's Flora' it is placed 

 among the " errors " as being mistaken for alpinum. 



With reference to the notice in ' Comp. Cyb. Brit.' of "Leefe 

 msc," Worcestershire, there seems to be some error, as the Rev. 

 J. E. Leefe informs me he never found L. alpinum or L. complanaUnti 

 in that county. Possibly the county record should have been 

 referred to the Rev. Prof. Churchill Babington, who found, as 

 Prof. C. C. Babington kindly writes me, " in July, 1837, on 

 Hartlebury Common, Worcestershire, a plant which he thought 

 might be L. complanatum or L. Chanicecyparissus, but which he had 



N. s. VOL. 11. [November, 1882.] 2 t 



