IN LYCOPODS 37 



sporophyte of L. cernuum, on th other hand, is a large dendroid plant, 

 which may attain a height of even 3-4 feet (Fig. 22). In the embryo 

 state it is nourished by the gametophyte which bore it, but it soon 

 establishes itself independently in the soil as a much-branched plant, 

 with relatively massive axes showing localised apical growth and numerous 

 small leaves ; while true roots, not mere rhizoids, ramify in the soil. 

 The whole plant is traversed by a vascular system, and there is also an 

 efficient ventilating system. This ample vegetative development precedes 

 the formation of the spores, which is localised in the terminal strobili : 



FIG. 21. 



Young leafy plant of Lycopodium cernMtin, L., with the prothallus, bearing its irregular 

 assimilating lobes, attached on its left-hand side. X about 20. (After Treub.) 



these do not differ in general plan from the vegetative shoots, but in 

 the axil of each leaf of these fertile branches a single sporangium is 

 borne, containing many small spores, which are all alike (Fig. 220, E). 



The gametophyte of Lycopodium is among the most elaborate known 

 in Vascular Plants : and yet it falls short of the complexity seen in the 

 plant of Catharinea. It is clear that the two correspond from the fact 

 that they both arise from spores and bear sexual organs. On the 

 other hand, the proportion of the sporophyte. as well as its conformation, 

 differs in high degree in the two plants. In place of the dependent 

 and ephemeral sporogonium, with limited apical growth, without appen- 

 dages, and bearing a single terminal capsule of spores, as in the Moss, 

 Lycopodium shows an independent and perennial plant, with apparently 

 unlimited apical growth and numerous appendages : it is rooted in 



