140 OUR NATIVE FERNS AND THEIR ALLIES. 



ORDER VII. SELAGINELLACE^. 



Plant-body leafy, terrestrial, moss-like, with branching stems 

 and minute scale-like leaves. Sporangia one-celled, solitary, 

 axillary, some containing microspores, and others macrospores. 

 Contains a single genus largely tropical. 



I. SELAGINELLA Beauv. 



Fructification arranged in spikes. Sporangia minute, sub- 

 globose, opening transversely; some containing usually 4 glo- 

 bose macrospores, and others smaller, filled with numerous 

 microspores. Leaves 4 many ranked. Name a diminutive of 

 Selago, an ancient name of some species of Lycopodium, which 

 this genus resembles. Contains about 335 species widely dis- 

 tributed ; seven are found within our limits. 



i. EUSELAGINELLA. Stem leaves of one kind, many- 

 ranked ; bracts uniform. 



* Stems prostrate or spreading, somewhat rigid. 



1. S. rupestris Spring. Stems densely tufted, prostrate 

 or ascending, much-branched, 2' 12' long; leaves appressed- 

 imbricate, linear or linear-lanceolate, convex and sulcate dor- 

 sally, rigid, bristle tipped, ciliate; spikes strongly quadrangular, 

 6" 12" long; sporangia of both sorts in the same axils ; macro- 

 sporangia abundant; bracts ovate-lanceolate. {Lycopodium 

 rupestre L., L. bryopteris Wall.) New England to Florida, 

 Texas, California, and northward. 



Var. tortipila. Leaves sub-entire, gibbous dorsally near 

 the apex ; terminal bracts tipped with a long, twisted, white 

 awn ; macrospores loosely reticulate. Caesar's Head, South 

 Carolina (J. D. SmitJi); Negro Mountain, North Carolina (Gray). 



2. S. selaginoides Link. Sterile stems prostrate or creep- 

 ing, small and slender; fertile stems thicker, ascending, simple, 

 i' 3' high; leaves lanceolate, acute, spreading, sparsely spinu- 

 lose-ciliate ; bracts lax, ascending, lanceolate or ovate-lanceo- 

 late, strongly ciliate. (S. spinosa Beauv., Lycopodium sclagi- 

 noides L., L. ciliatum Lam.) New Hampshire to Colorado and 

 northward to Greenland. 



** Stems pendent, flaccid. 



3. S. Oregana D. C. Eaton. Stems i 6 long, pinnately 



