LYCOPODIACE^E. 17 



seldom remain erect or ascending after they are 1 or 2 inches high. 

 Leaves ^ to ^ inch long, exclusive of the white hair-like point, rather 

 thin, bright green, with an evident midrib. Peduncles 1 to 4 inches 

 long, rather slender; spikes 1J to 1\ inches long. Bracts at first 

 adpressed and greenish, ultimately spreading or reflexed at the point, 

 and straw-yellow. Sporangia reniform. 



When L. clavatum is in fruit it cannot be mistaken for any 

 other British species, this being the only one which has the spikes 

 supported on a long slender peduncle. But sometimes when the 

 hair-like point of the leaves is short, the barren stem bears some 

 resemblance to that of L. annotinum ; the leaves, however, of L. cla- 

 vatum are thinner in texture, brighter green, less decurrent, and 

 without the rigid almost prickly point which is found in L. anno- 

 tinum ; they are also less spreading, and almost always some of 

 them at least have a white wool-like point, which indeed is some- 

 times as long as the leaf, and in the young plant generally forms a 

 little tuft at the end of the growing branches. The North American 

 L. clavatum is quite similar to the European. 



Common Club-moss. 



SPECIES V.-LYCOPODIUM ALPINUM. Mm. 



Plate 1834. 

 Babenh. Crypt. Vase. Europ. No. 96. 



Stem rather long, creeping, prostrate, much branched. Branches 

 ascending or erect, regularly two or three times dichotomous, so as to 

 appear fasciculate; the ultimate branches of each fascicle of nearly 

 equal length, approximate. Leaves inserted in four rows : those on 

 the main stem remote and scale-like, strap-shaped, obtuse or sub- 

 acute, entire ; those on the branches approximate ; the lateral ones 

 opposite, placed edgeways to the stem, triangular subulate, falcate, 

 broadest at the base, very acute, entire ; those of the upper row 

 imbricated, smaller than the lateral ones, narrowly elliptical-subulate, 

 affixed by a narrow base, acute, entire ; those of the lower row not 

 imbricated, similar to those of the upper row, but smaller. Fertile 

 branchlets repeatedly dichotomous, approximate, equal in length, 

 usually conspicuously longer than the accompanying barren branch- 

 lets, with the leaves regularly imbricated in four rows round the 

 stem, all similar, adpressed, lanceolate-subulate. Spikes solitary and 

 sessile at the extremities of the ultimate divisions of the fertile 

 branchlets, cylindrical; bracts ovate acuminated into a triangular 

 cusp, subcordate, erose or denticulate. 



On bare and stony places, common on mountains, but rare in low 



VOL. XII. D 



