SECOND WEEK IN NOVEMBER 



feather, with a sheen of metallic blue. This is one of the 

 most beautiful of all, but is not very easy to grow, as it 

 requires a deep shade to produce its finest tints, and will not 

 bear a lower temperature than 55, disappearing in the 

 winter if subjected to a chill. It should be planted in rock- 

 work on the shady side of a warm fernery, and it will then 

 throw its exquisite branches far and wide, and assume its 

 richest colouring. Another very elegant plant is S. tasselata, 

 from Brazil, with drooping tasselled leaves of considerable 

 breadth ; S. grandis, too, a variety from Borneo, with 

 upright fringed leaves, giving it the appearance of a miniature 

 forest, is very distinct, but it needs a thoroughly saturated 

 atmosphere, with abundance of warmth, to do well, and 

 should be covered with a bell-glass as a rule. All the green- 

 house selaginellas should have a compost of peat in small 

 lumps, leaf-mould, sphagnum moss (cut up into lengths of 

 an inch or two), charcoal, and sand ; and broad pans will 

 suit them better than pots as giving more room for their 

 rambling rootlets. They also do well in a rockery under 

 glass. The moist tropical parts of the earth are largely 

 clothed with these lovely plants, but in Britain we have only 

 one native variety Selaginella spinulosa which may be 

 found in boggy places on the mountains of the Lake District, 

 North Wales, and elsewhere. It has creeping slender stems, 

 rooting into the soil as they grow, with short erect branches 

 a few inches high. Lycopodiums (club mosses) are nearly 

 related to the selaginellas, although distinct from them in 

 the way they reproduce themselves ; both, however, produce 

 their spores at the axils of their leaves, not on the back of 

 them, as do the ferns, nor on separate stalks like the mosses. 

 Five varieties of Lycopodium are found in our islands, chiefly 

 in the mountainous districts of Wales, Cumberland, and 

 Scotland, on stony moors or boggy heaths ; L. clavatum is 

 not so uncommon as the rest of these plants. 



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