I2O WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



The dust-like spores have been used as a waterproof coating 

 for pills ; under the name of Vegetable Brimstone they have 

 been used in pyrotechny and to produce stage lightning. In 

 the days of the author's youth they enabled the parlour 

 conjurer to perform the trick of dipping his hand under 

 water without wetting it : the hand being first powdered with 

 " Lycopodium." The spores for these purposes as also for 

 use as a fixative in dyeing and for use in medicine are col- 

 lected in North Germany. 



The name Lycopodium is compounded from the Greek words 

 lukos, a wolf, and pous, a foot, from a fancied resemblance 

 between the growing shoots of L. clavatum and the paw of a 

 wolf. Club-moss has been suggested by the fact that the 

 fruiting spikes are club-shaped. There are only five British 

 species. Selaginella was formerly regarded as a sixth species, 

 but later investigations of its method of reproduction have 

 established its affinity with the Quillwort (Isoetes). In these 

 two genera spores of two kinds are produced, large and small, 

 which are respectively female and male. 



Common Club-moss (Lycopodiiim davatuni). 



This is not only the most widely distributed of our Club- 

 mosses : it is also the largest and the best known of them. 

 It is a plant of heaths, moors, and mountain sides, where it 

 runs in an undulating manner over and among the Sphagnum 

 and other mosses, the tormentils and bedstraws, the grass and 

 innumerable other plants that go to make up the moorland carpet. 

 This undulating stem of vivid green has the combined stiffness 

 and pliancy of copper wire, and it extends for several feet, 

 frequently forking to send off a side shoot or an upward spike. 

 It is densely clothed with slender lance-shaped leaves which 

 are about a quarter of an inch long, slightly toothed, and end in 

 a long hair-point which curves in towards the stem. They 



