shape like a little club or the reed mace, saving that it is much lesser, 

 and of a yellowish white colour, very wel resembling the claw of a 

 wolfe, whereof it tooke his name, which knobby catkins are altogether 

 barren, and bring forth neither seed nor floure." * 



It seems rather unaccountable that neither Gerarde, nor his able 

 editor, Johnson, to vsdiom, by the way, the great herbalist is indebted 

 for the better half of his fame, should have so entirely overlooked the 

 minute but multitudinous seeds, which have attracted the attention of 

 so many other botanists. Olearius appears to have been the first to 

 mention these seeds, and a curious purpose to which they have been 

 applied. This author devotes the 24th chapter of the 4th book of his 

 Itinerary to the fire-works of Ardebil, a town in Persia ; and he be- 

 lieves them produced by the seeds of this Lycopodium. He observes, 

 " We saw at a distance some flames rise suddenly in the air, and as 

 suddenly disappear, and we supposed them to be produced by the Rus- 

 sian Pimm, which is much used for this purpose. The plann, to explain 

 more fully, is nothing more than a yellow dust which is beaten out of 

 the Muscus terrestris. The moss is called in herbals heerlap^ or De- 

 riVs-claiv, and grows commonly in fir and birch woods, and also on 

 waste lands ; I have frequently met with it in the Russian and Livo- 

 nian woods. It throws out twin cones, which, when ripe in August, 

 are collected in large quantities and dried in furnaces ; the powder is 

 then beaten out and sold by the pound. I bought several ox-bladders 

 full, and brought them home with me. Its other uses are in green 

 wounds, recent bruises, and for chafed children, inasmuch as it is of 

 a drying and healing nature, and it is moreover used by the Russians 

 in the Chaldaic fire above spoken of. The powder is placed in a tin 

 cases, of elongate conical form, about half an ell in length, or sometimes 

 shorter ; this is taken in the hand, and a burning light or torch is pla- 

 ced at the aperture, the case is then waved about in the air, so that 

 the p/rtw« flows through the aperture, and then ignites, producing a 

 bright flame : when the motion is rapidly repeated, so that one flame 

 follows another, it produces a very extraordinary effect. Fine fun 

 may be made in company, if a tobacco-pipe be secretly filled with 

 this ;?/«?/;?, and held at the light and blown into ; a strong flame, sud- 

 denly and unexpectedly to those sitting around, proceeds from it, and 

 that it may produce a great noise, they mix it with powdered birch- 

 leaves. The plaun-powder has the property of igniting only when it 

 is dusted through a flame in the air, and not otherwise, even if a torch 



*Ger. Em. 1562. 

 f Tragus figures the plant under this name. 



I] 2 



