THE BRITISH CLUB-MOSSES. 95 



which must have rivalled our coniferous trees. The evi- 

 dence in support of this view has been questioned ; but there 

 seems no good reason to doubt, at least, that there is a very 

 close affinity between the two races ; and, indeed, some of 

 the most skilful investigators of this subject find an almost 

 complete agreement between them. 



The British species are with one exception included in the 

 genus Lycopodium, the name of which comes from lycos, a 

 wolf, and podos, a foot, and is given in allusion to the sup- 

 posed resemblance of its forked fertile stems to the claw of 

 some animal, as of the wolf. Hence one species, and that 

 which probably suggested the name, has been called Wolfs- 

 claw. The name Selaginella is a diminutive of Selago, the 

 specific title of one of the common species of Club-moss. 



THE FIR CLUB-MOSS. 



This is the Lycopodium Selago of botanists. It is one of 

 the commonest of the species, and is usually of upright 

 growth^ the others being decumbent. This upright habit, 

 which is evidently natural to it, often, however, gives way 

 before the force of gravity, and in such cases the lower part 

 of the stems is found to be somewhat recumbent, while the 

 upper parts retain an upright position. The stems vary 

 from three or four to six or eight inches high, and are 

 branched two or three times in a two-forked manner ; they 

 are stout, tough, rigid, nearly of equal length, producing a 

 level-topped tuft, and thickly clothed with imbricated leaves 

 which are arranged in eight rows. These leaves are lance- 

 shaped, acute, shining green, leathery in texture, and smooth 

 on the margin ; in plants which have grown in exposed 

 places they are shorter and more closely pressed to the stem- 

 while in plants developed in more confined and humid 

 situations they are longer, less rigid, and more spreading. 



The fructification is in this species not borne in terminal 

 spikes as in the other kinds, but is produced in the axils of 

 the leaves at the upper part of the stems. The spore-cases 

 are rather large, sessile, kidney-shaped, two-valved, and 

 filled with minute pale yellow spores. 



Besides the ordinary spores, the plant is furnished with 

 other means of propagation in the shape of deciduous buds, 

 produced for the most part in the axils of the leaves, about 

 the apices of the branches. These buds separate sponta- 

 neously, fall to the ground, and there vegetate, first produ- 

 cing roots, and then elongating into a leafy stem. They 

 are formed by an altered leaf, which, becoming somewhat 



