HO ABOUT MOSSES AND LICHENS. [CHAP. 



pinuwi], and the Prickly Mountain-moss (Selaginella 

 spinosa). All these are very humble plants, but they 

 are the modern representatives of giants, the Lepido- 

 dendra and Sigillaria of the Carboniferous Period, 

 which form a large portion of our coal. These 

 Lepidodendra resembled the Club-mosses, whilst the 

 Sigillaria seem to have been a connecting link be- 

 tween the Club-mosses and the Pine-trees. 



" The Lepidodendrons are without doubt the splen- 

 did old representatives of a family now dwindled 

 down to such things as our club-mosses or Lycopo- 

 diums. Now, it is a certain fact, which can be proved 

 by the microscope, that a very great part of the best 

 coal is actually made up of millions of the minute 

 seeds of club-mosses, such as grow a few of them, 

 and those very small on our moors; a proof, surely, 

 not only of the vast amount of the vegetation in the 

 coal-making age, but also of the vast time during 

 which it lasted. The Lepidodendra may have been 

 fifty or sixty feet high. There is not a Lycopodium 

 in the world now, I believe, five feet high. But the 

 club-mosses are now, in these islands and elsewhere, 

 lovers of wet and peaty soils, and so may their huger 

 prototypes have been in the old forests of the coal " 

 (Kingsley*). 



The spores of existing species form an unimportant 

 article of commerce, under the popular name of 

 "vegetable lightning;" they are highly inflammable, 

 and are used for the purpose of producing stage 

 lightning, hence the name. They are also used for 

 coating pills, and are probably well known to young- 



* Town Geology, p. 128. 



