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THE BRITISH CLUB-MOSSES. 



Genus XX. LYCOPODIUM, or CLUB MOSS. 



The Lycopodlums, commonly called Club-mosses, are 

 moss -like plants, mostly of creeping or decumbent habit ; 

 with slender fork-branched stems, consisting of spiral 

 vessels and tubular ducts running longitudinally among 

 the cellular tissue ; they are throughout their whole length 

 clothed with leaves, so placed as to overlie each other like 

 the tiling of a roof. The fructification is produced in the 

 axils of the leaves, and is in most of the species confined 

 to the apices of the branches, where it forms a cone-like 

 head. 



The organs of reproduction at once distinguish the 

 Club- mosses from all other plants. They consist, in the 

 true Lycopodlums, of kidney-shaped spore-cases, contain- 

 ing minute powdery or granular spores, which, by reason 

 of lateral pressure, acquire the form of irregular polygons. 



