210 



have seen are those by Bernard de Jussieu, published in the ' Me- 

 moires de I'Academie Royale des Sciences,'* and by Mr. Valentine, 

 in the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society.'f Both these authors 

 have given fidl and interesting details of its history, and seem so com- 

 pletely to have preoccupied the ground as to leave little or nothing 

 for me to add. An abstract of Mr. Valentine's paper has already ap- 

 peared in 'The Phytologist' (Phytol. 55), and a second detail of his 

 observations would not be justifiable. 



The roots are generally two or three inches in length, very flexi- 

 ble, slender, and but slightly branched ; they are hollow, and divided 

 by several longitudinal septa ; they appear to descend pei-pendicularly 

 into the mud or moistened earth in which the plant is found : they 

 spring from a creeping rhizoma, which is also hollow and longitudi- 

 nally divided ; it is very slender and cylindrical, and the terminal or 

 growing portion is invariably covered with a close investment of scales 

 or scale-like hairs ; these, like a similar investment common to the 

 creeping rhizomata of Polypodium vulgare, Davallia canariensis, and 

 several other ferns, fall off with age, leaving the rhizoma perfectly na- 

 ked and smooth. The roots spring from the rhizoma at intervals of 

 considerable regularity, usually measuring about the thii-d of an inch: 

 they are generally three or four in a cluster, and immediately above 

 them rise an equal number of erect, slender, smooth, setiform, pointed 

 leaves : these are hollow like the roots and rhizoma ; they are ra- 

 ther longer than the roots, and when they first make their appearance 

 are rolled up in a manner precisely analogous to that exhibited in the 

 circinate vernation of ferns. At many of the points of the rhizoma 

 whence spring the leaves and roots, it also emits a small lateral 

 branch, which bears leaves and roots at intervals like the parent rhi- 

 zoma ; and when this, in the course of nature, decays, these lateral 

 branches continue vigorous, and become the nuclei whence future 

 plants originate. The lateral branches occur with great regularity 

 alternately on the right and left of the parent rhizoma ; 

 in proportion to their distance from the terminal point 

 of the rhizoma these lateral branches increase in 

 length, and the angles at which they join it become 

 more and more obtuse. 



The capsule is placed on a short stalk in the axil 

 of the leaves : when full grown it occasionally attains 

 the size of an ordinary pepper-corn, and is neaiiy 

 spherical, but slightly elongated at its apex ; it is closely covered with 

 * 1739, p. 256, tah. xi. f Trans. Linn. Soc. xviii. 483. 



