LYCOPODIACE.F. 13 



Tar. /3. recurvum. 



Leaves spreading or reflexed, usually longer and more decidedly 

 strap-shaped than in var. a. 



On heaths, rocks, and barren places, chiefly on mountainous dis- 

 tricts, although it is found over the whole of Britain from Cornwall, 

 Devon, and Sussex north to Orkney and Shetland ; but it is a scarce 

 plant in the low-lying counties of England. Frequent and widely 

 distributed throughout Ireland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer, Autumn. 



Stem short, or at least the rooting part of it, leafy to the base, often 

 reddish, forking 2 to 5 times into branches from 2 to 7 inches long, 

 very rarely a foot long ; these branches rise from the procumbent 

 part of the stem with a rather sudden curve, and when growino- on 

 rocks or beside hollows they frequently dip downwards before they 

 ascend. Leaves ^ to -^ inch long, those on the lower part of the stem 

 generally spreading or reflexed, and those in the upper part of the 

 branches adpressed, but every intermediate form occurs between the 

 extremes of the leaves being all adpressed, or all spreading; thev are 

 convex, beneath bright green or olive, and have no evident midrib. 

 Generally the branches are quite continuous, but sometimes they are 

 slightly annotinous, with slight indications of the annual growth. 

 There is no marked division between the spikes and the branches, the 

 leaves in the axils of which there are sporangia, being quite similar to 

 the others. The sporangia are sometimes confined to the apex of the 

 branches, but more usually are spread over the greater part of their 

 erect portion. On the upper part of the stem small buds or bulbils, 

 developed from the upper leaves, are to be found. These bulbils are 

 formed in an irregular 6-cleft calyx-like body, developed out of the 

 upper leaves ; the bulbils consist of 5 lobes, of which 2 remain small, 

 while the others develope into oval leaf-like bodies, ultimately at 

 least as long as and much broader than the leaves of the plant. The 

 bulbils appear to germinate whether they remain on the plant or fall 

 to the ground. A detailed account of them will be found in Xewman's 

 'British Ferns,' ed. ii. p. 378-380, and ' Phytologist ' for 1844, 

 pp. 84-86. 



I have never seen British specimens of L. Selago with the leaves 

 spinous-serrate. Milde includes under L. Selago, L. suberectum, 

 Lowe, in which they are very conspicuously spinous-serrate ; but 

 this plant, from Madeira and the Azores, seems too different from 

 L. Selago not to be separated from it at least as a subspecies, to which 

 it has as good a claim as the North American L. lucidulum, Michaux. 



Fir Clubmoss. 



