98 THE TRAILING LYCOPODIUMS. 



Lycopodium Sitchense. 



Half a century ago Ruprecht described a species of 

 club-moss from the northern part of North America, to 

 which he gave the name of Lycopodium Site/tense. Until 

 recently little attention has been paid to this plant, 

 because it has always been considered a variety of 

 Lycopodium sabince folium. It differs from that species as 

 at present considered in having shorter main stems, and 

 shorter, slenderer branches and branchlets which form 

 flat-topped tufts of green after the manner of Lycopodium 

 alpimun. The branches are not dorsi-ventrally flattened, 

 and according to Underwood the leaves are arranged on 

 the stem in five rows. 



Lycopodium Sitchense is the smallest and most delicate 

 of all our trailing species. The main stems are often 

 less than a foot long and creep on the surface or just 

 beneath it. Its leaves are very slender, about an eighth 

 of an inch long ,and thickly set on the branches, from 

 which they stand out in a way that faintly suggests the 

 leaves of Lycopodium obscurum. As in all the other trail- 

 ing lycopodiums, the main branches con- 

 tinue to add new branchlets for several 

 years. 



The catkins are from half an inch to an 

 inch long and an eighth of an inch in 

 diameter, and are borne on slender pedun- 

 cles or are occasionally sessile on the ends of 

 the branches. Most descriptions of this 

 species record the peduncle as less than 

 half an inch long; but specimens collected in the 

 Province of Quebec by M. L. Fernald have peduncles 

 nearly two inches long, and this feature seems to be not 



