CRYPTOGAMOUS PLANTS. 233 



Section V. 

 Of the Lycopodiacece. 



The family of the Lycopodiaceas, although not nu- 

 merous in species, is one of those, the structure of which 

 is the most difficult to be understood. The diversity of 

 organs which are found, either collected together, or 

 separated in the different groups of the family, is the 

 principal difficulty met with in this study. 



The only species which may be regarded as sufficiently 

 known, is Lycopodium denticulatum, very well described 

 by Mr. Brotero, and figured by Mr. Salisbury in the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society; this species joined 

 to L. Helveticum, forms a genus or particular section, to 

 which the name Diplostachyum, proposed by Beauvois, 

 may be retained, although the character is hardly cor- 

 rect. These species present two kinds of spikes upon 

 the same plant, or a single spike, which encloses two sets 

 of organs in the axil of the bracts. We find in the upper 

 part of these spikes, slightly crustaceous, reniform, bi- 

 valve bodies, full of an angular, yellowish or orange 

 powder. Mr. Brotero thinks that this organ is an anther 

 full of pollen, and he affirms that he has sown it without 

 his ever having seen it germinate. Beauvois adopts the 

 same opinion. At the base of the spikes or on the 

 shorter ones, borne upon the same plant, we find in the 

 axils of the bracts other bodies, which are also crusta- 

 ceous, and which open by four lobes, and contain four 

 yellowish globules, marked at their base with three pro- 

 jecting ribs ; these globules are seeds, for, in the midst 

 of a great number which were abortive, Messrs. Brotero 

 and Salisbury have seen some of them germinate ; con- 

 sequently the shell with four lobes which contains them 



