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The roots are tough, wiry and tortuous, apparently not long, but 

 veiy firmly fixed in the ground. The stem is creeping, very strong 

 and tough, and has the surface deeply and irregularly striated: it sends 

 out, at intervals varying from one to four inches, long branches in an 

 erect position ; these increase annually in length, the growth of each 

 year being very decidedly marked by the altered length and direction 

 of the leaves; so much so indeed as to give the branches a somewhat 

 jointed appearance. From the marking of each year s growth the 

 name of annotinum has probably been given to this Lycopodium ; a 

 name, however, not exactly appropriate, because the word rather im- 

 plies of one year's age, leading us to imagine the plant was annual. 

 These upright branches are either single or again divided ; and when 

 fertile, which is by no means invariably the case, the spike is usually 

 on the sixth or seventh joint of the branch. After having fruited, or 

 arrived at equivalent age, the erect branches become prone, throw out 

 roots and emit erect branches as before. Connected with this subject 

 Sir J. E. Smith has broached an interesting hypothesis, which I will 

 give in his own words. " The flowering branches are erect, densely 

 leafy, but little subdivided, each terminating in a solitary upright spike, 

 whose scales, being deciduous, seem to leave the branch partly naked, 

 but it afterwards bears proper leaves, except a few diminished ones 

 just under where the spike had been, and produces, in the following 

 season, another spike : hence the jointed or interrupted asj)ect of 

 the branches."* This assertion would surely never have been made 

 without what the learned author considered sufficient ground, and it is 

 with considerable hesitation that I venture to express an opinion at va- 

 riance with that of so observant a botanist, but I must confess that the 

 specimens I have examined by no means bear out the opinions I have 

 quoted ; indeed, were the hypothesis a correct one, should we not find 

 the spike occupying indifferently any joint of the branch, and not so 

 generally confined to those which are numerically the same ? More- 

 over, in a specimen now before me from the herbarium of Mr. S. P. 

 Woodward, the spike exhibits all the symptoms of incipient decay. 



The branches, throughout their length, are clothed with linear 

 leaves, which are very acutely pointed and have minute lateral serra- 

 tures : those on the older portions are somewhat more scattered and 

 distant, an appearance caused by the elongation of the stem itself, the 

 leaves being persistent, and enduring for very many years. Those on 

 the lower portion of the erect branches are often somewhat reflexed, 

 while on the more recent growth they are erect, more crowded, and 



* English Flora, iv. 334. 



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