XIV] LYCOPODIACEAE 33 



Selaginella lepidophylla, a tropical American type, popularly 

 known as the Resurrection plant, and often erroneously spoken 

 of as the Rose of Jericho^ possesses the power of rolling up its 

 shoots during periods of drought and furnishes an example of a 

 species adapted to conditions in marked contrast to those which 

 are most favourable to the majority of species. 



The only British species is Selaginella spinosa named 

 by Linnaeus Lycopodium selaginoides and occasionally referred 

 to as Selaginella spinulosa A. Br. (not to be confounded with a 

 Javan species S. spinulosa Spring^). 



Isoetaceae. Isoetes (fig. 132), of which Mr Baker in his 

 Handbook of the Fern- Allies enumerates 49 species, is a 

 type apart, differing in habit as in certain other characters from 

 the other members of the Lycopodiales. Some botanists* 

 prefer to include the genus among the Filicales, but the balance 

 of evidence, including resemblances between Isoetes and extinct 

 Lycopodiaceous plants, would seem to favour its retention as an 

 aberrant genus of the group Lycopodiales. Some species are 

 permanently submerged, others occur in situations intermit- 

 tently covered with water, and a few grow in damp soil. 

 Isoetes lacustris is found in mountain tarns and lakes of Britain 

 and elsewhere in Central and Northern Europe and North 

 America. Isoetes hystrix^, a land-form occurs in Guernsey, 

 North-East France, Spain and Asia Minor. 



Lycopodiaceae. 



The monotypic genus Phylloglossum, represented by P. 

 Drummondii of Australia and New Zealand, though interesting 

 from the point of view of its probable claim to be considered 

 the most primitive type of existing Lycopodiaceous plants, need 

 not be dealt with in detail. A complete individual, which 

 does not exceed 4 or 5 cm. in length, consists of a very small 

 tubercle or protocorm bearing a rosette of slender subulate 

 leaves and prolonged distally as a simple naked axis which over- 

 tops the foliage leaves and terminates in a compact cluster of 



1 The Eose of Jericho is Anastatica Hierochuntina L. a Cruciferous plant. 

 = Baker (87) A. p. 34. ^ Vines (88). * Scott and Hill (00). 



