CRYPTOGAMOUS PLANTS. 235 



mable nature. This opinion would seem confirmed by 

 the extreme analogy which is observed between the bi- 

 valve shells of the section Plananthes, compared with 

 those of the section Selaginella, which analogy obliges 

 us to consider as males ; the contrary opinion has been 

 maintained by Hedwig, but to support it he has been 

 compelled to admit for the male organs of these plants 

 kinds of foliaceous buds which do not resemble any 

 known male flower. I admit then, with little doubt, 

 that the bivalve shells of Plananthes and Lycopodium of 

 Beauvois are male organs, of which we do not know the 

 females ; but I am much more uncertain with regard to 

 the nature of the shells with three valves in Psilotum, 

 although the globules contained in them appear to in- 

 close fovilla rather than an embryo. 



I have met with two organs analogous to those of Ly- 

 copodium in the genus Isoetes, which might be defined 

 by the name of Lycopodium aquaticum. Having had an 

 opportunity during my stay at Montpellier to see a living 

 plant, I attentively examined it : the leaves spring 

 from a kind of fleshy subterranean stem, slightly analo- 

 gous to those of bulbous plants. Each of them bears in 

 its axil a fructifying organ, or a flower which is adherent 

 to it ; in those which may be considered as the lower 

 ones, we find a membranous indehiscent body concealed 

 by a small foliaceous lamina, surmounted by a filament, 

 divided internally into three compartments by small 

 transverse columns, and enclosing about fifty spherical 

 globules, marked at their base with three projecting 

 ribs, as the seeds of Lycopodium denticulatum. In the 

 axil of the central leaves we find other bodies very simi- 

 lar to the preceding, but which are divided internally 

 into more numerous compartments, which contain an 

 impalpable powder, at first white, afterwards black. 



If I had caused either of the two powders which I 



