ALPINE CLUB-MOSS. 123 



North and West Asia, Himalaya, and along the eastern 

 side of North America. 



Interrupted Club-moss is obviously a book-name, and a 

 rather clumsy one at that. No folk-name appears to have been 

 invented. The "interrupted" refers to the constrictions of 

 the branches, and the Latin name annotinum, a year's growth, 

 has a similar significance. 



Alpine Club-moss (Lycopodinm alpinum). 



The Alpine Club-moss is one of the sights of the rocky moors 

 and heaths, and mountain plateaus of Wales, and the more 

 northern parts of this island. The wiry undulating stem runs for 

 two or three feet among the moss and grass, and is not very 

 evident, but its short erect branches fork again and again, 

 so that each shoot from the main stem ends above in a bundle 

 of slender crowded branches whose tops are all at about the 

 same level. The small lance-shaped leaves are untoothed, 

 arranged in four rows, each leaf closely overlapping those 

 immediately above it. They are dark-green in general colour, 

 but with pale tips which give a pleasing glaucous hue to the 

 branch. Each fruitful branch ends in a solitary stalkless cone, 

 whose scales are broadly oval with tapering apex, and a slight 

 approach to teeth near the broad base. The spores are ripe in 

 July and August. (Plates 133, 134.) 



This species is so very distinct at first sight that there is no 

 danger of confusing it with any other of our native species. 

 Lycopodinm alpinum is really only a sub-species of the 

 Continental L. complanatum, but the typical form strangely does 

 not occur in this country, though it has been reported from Wor- 

 cestershire and Gloucestershire. These are believed to have 

 been extra large specimens with flattened branches, which is a 

 characteristic of the typical form, which also has leaves of two 

 forms, stalks to the cones, and two or more cones rising from 

 one branch. 



