108 Underwood and Lloyd : Lycopodium 



8. Lycopodium setaceum Lam. Encyc. Meth. Bot. 3: 653. 



1789. (Type from the Antilles and Bourbon ; but Plumier, Fil. 



pi. 166, f. B y as well as Dillen, Hist. Muse.//. 36 y f. J, is cited.) 



Not L. setaceum Hamilton, 1825. 



Lycopodium acerosum Sw. (Fl. Ind. Occ. 3 : 1575. 1806 ; type 

 from Bourbon) may be the same species, since Svvartz cites the 

 same plates as Lamarck and states that Dillen also had it from 

 the West Indies. Swartz in Syn. Fil. (1806) refers both L. set- 

 aceum and Z. acerosum to L. verticillatum L. fil. (Suppl. 448. 1 781 ; 

 type from Bourbon), but this is described as having "foliis quadri- 



forks* 1 which will not apply to the plant of the American tropics. 

 Since the time of Swartz, the American plant has been referred to 

 L. verticillatitm, probably incorrectly ; at least the name L. setaceum 

 is the earliest that it is safe to take up in the absence of any 

 material from Bourbon.* 



Range : Cuba ( Wright 933, Eggers 5173), Jamaica (Jenman), 

 Martinique (Fere Duss), Haiti {Nash 664), Dominica (Lloyd 342, 

 6p? f 808, 810). 



9. Lycopodium portoricense sp. nov. 



A bushy but slender pale-green terrestrial pendent plant with 

 subsecund leaves. Stems less than 1.5 mm. in diameter, covered 

 to the bases with leaves, several times dichotomous, 30 cm. or 

 more long ; leaves and sporophyls alternating in zones, the leaves 

 linear, acuminate, 6-8 mm. long by 0.3-0.4 mm. wide, more or 

 less secund ; sporophyls tapering gradually from a base 0.6 mm. 

 wide to the apex, 6 mm. long ; sporangia round-reniform, 1.3 mm. 

 w r ide by 1 mm. deep. 



Porto Rico : Road from Guyama to Cayey, pendent on 



banks, Underwood & Griggs 434 (type); Luquillo Mts., Percy 

 Wilson iji. 



This species is related rather closely to L. setaceum, but differs 

 in its longer leaves, which are truly linear and not tapering from 

 the base, in its larger stems, and in its terrestrial habit. 



* Since the time of Swartz it has been quite common to refer West Indian and 

 Central American pteridophytes to species originally described from Bourbon (Reunion) 

 or Mauritius. When we come to examine typical material from those islands we invari- 

 ably find it very different from the better known American forms referred to the same 

 species. There is every a priori reason for supposing the two floras to be very dis- 

 tinct, and every new examination of pteridophyte types shows this supposition to be 

 true. 



