82 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
bright golden colour, and of a glossy, almost 
pellucid texture. In other parts of the world, 
however, Lycopods grow on the low grounds in 
the woods and other warm, humid situations, 
adding to the picturesqueness and beauty of the 
sylvan scenery. One species, the Tmesipteris, 
remarkable for its pendulous habit and very broad 
leaves, hangs down in long trailing wreaths from 
the trunks of tree-ferns, in South America and 
New Zealand. In the little island of St. Paul, 
isolated from the rest of the world in the Indian 
Ocean, thousands of miles from any friendly shore, 
there occurs a beautiful species (LZ. cernum), the 
presence of which in that remote locality is a 
puzzle to the student of geographical botany. 
This island is situated in the temperate zone, 
while the normal range of this plant is exclusively 
within the tropics. As, however, the Island is 
volcanic, and contains numerous hot springs, which 
diffuse considerable warmth around, this circum- 
stance may account for the presence of the lyco- 
pod, especially as it also occurs, far out of its 
proper range, about the warm springs of the 
Azores. Luxuriating in beautiful tufts amid the 
barren tufa of this lonely island, it is a welcome 
and refreshing sight to the voyager on the way 
to Australia, tired of the monotony of the sea, 
and yearning for mother earth. Like himself, a 
