LYCKSELE LAPLAND. 135 



spreading, permanent, of a whitish green 

 colour. Within these scales or petals is a 

 flat, or slightly convex, disk, composed of 

 innumerable very slender whitish filaments 

 with reddish tips, much shorter than the 

 surrounding scales. Can these filaments 

 be the stamens ? They are by no means ru- 

 diments of leaves. One, two or three 

 branches grow out at the base of this 

 flower, the latter being for the most part 

 perennial, and go through the same mode 

 of growth and flowering as the parent 

 plant. The calyx therefore, contrary to 

 the nature of the common I^olytrichum, is 

 proliferous from its base. 



It is curious that all the flowers, in each 

 tuft composed perhaps of a hundred plants, 

 rise exactly to the same level. It is also 

 remarkable that the new stems form a simi- 

 lar angle to that made by the growth of 

 the preceding year (d), so that the whole 

 assemblage of them is as regularly disposed 

 as a body of åoldiers. 

 5 



