-60— 



loving fern, and while it will stand more sun than many of its 

 relatives if supplied with water, like most other water plants it 

 withers much sooner than do allied species growing in drier 

 ground, when taken from its natural surroundings. 



THE CREEPING SELAGINELLA. 



IN eastern North America there are three species of Selaginella. 

 One of these (S. selaginoides) is found far northward and 

 barely reaches the United States. Another (S. rupestris) is 

 common on dry and exposed rocks throughout the continent; and 

 the third (S. apus),. the subject of this sketch, grows "in low, 

 shaded places from Maine and Ontario to the Northwest Terri- 

 tory, south to Florida, Louisiana and Texas." Apparently, it is 

 somewhat common throughout its range, but its size, appearance 

 and manner of growth all conspire to shield it from discovery. 

 Many who are familiar with the majority of the higher crypto- 

 gams find themselves baffled in their search for this diminutive 

 member of the group. It is likely that the plant is often set down 

 as missing, when the fact is that it has only eluded the eye. 



The creeping Selaginella is a plant that one must get down 

 on his knees to find during most of the year. Its slender, pros- 

 trate stems, scarcely four inches long, with leaves half as large 

 as a flax-seed, need a sharp eye to detect them. In the spring* 

 before the grass has started, the task is easiest, the delicate yel- 

 low-green of the foliage making it quite noticeable amid the gray 

 of the stubble and the dark greens and bronzes of neighboring 

 mosses. In the vicinity of New York City this is one of the 

 commonest of the fern allies, growing in thickets, fields, pastures 

 and country door-yards ; but even here in August, when it fruits, 

 to find it in the profusion of other vegetation requires a diligent 

 search. If found at all it is usually on the border of some wet 

 meadow, just where the grasses begin to give way to sedges, 

 trumpet weed, turtle-head and other marsh plants. On the black 

 mud, well shaded by tufts of sedge, it grows in little colonies, 

 like a moss, with branches thickly intertwined. 



There is a genus of mosses {Mnium) growing in the same 

 places and having leaves like those of Selaginella, that might be 

 mistaken for it ; but if we examine the latter closely we find that 

 it has two kinds of leaves while the moss has but one. The mem- 

 bers of the larger leaf series are barely one-twelfth of an inch in 

 length and are arranged on opposite sides of the stem, their blades 



