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XXIV. On ihe Germination of Lycopodium denticulatum, in a 

 Letter to the Secretary from Richard Anthony Salisbury, Esq. 

 F.R.S. and L.S. 



Read June 3, 18 17. 

 Dear Sir, 



Professor Brotero's description of the Lycopodium denticu- 

 latum agrees so exactly with the plant of which I send you some 

 figures, Tab. XIX., that I have nothing to add to it, except that 

 1 have never found the capsule thrce-lobed, as he says it is, but 

 invariably four-lobed : in some positions, however, it appears 

 three-lobed, and he himself mentions that it always contains 

 four seeds. 



Notwithstanding I have examined many flowering branches I 

 have not been able to detect the manner in which t°he seeds are 

 foscundated, or to find any thing like an Embryo in them, though 

 they come up m abundance spontaneously under the parent 

 plant, and on the adjacent moist parts of the shelf, where it 

 stands in Mr. Joseph Knight's greenhouse. 



'J'he seeds contain at an early period of their formation a clear 

 hquor, which quickly evaporates, and flashes when applied to a 

 candle: this liquor soon becomes milky, and is finally converted 

 into what appears to me grumous albumen.-I am not certain 

 how the seeds are inserted, and believe that I have not yet been 

 so lucky as to meet with a single fcecundated seed, though perfect 

 m all other respects; for tins occurs in Cycas, when there is no 

 male plant to foecundate its seeds. In one capsule, in which the 



3 B 2 seeds 



