356 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
XXI. — Preliminary Statement on the Morphology of the Cone of 
Lycopodium cernuum and its bearing on the affinities of 
Spencerites. By William H. Lang, M.B., D.Sc., Lecturer in 
Botany, Glasgow University. Communicated by Professor F. 0. 
Bower, Sc.D., F.R.S.L. and E. 
(MS. received May 5, 1908. Read May 5, 1908.) 
It is a remarkable fact that in spite of the primitive features which appear 
to be preserved in the existing genus Lycopodium, there is little or no 
evidence pointing to ancient forms to which this genus itself can be related. 
Some of the smaller palaeozoic Lycopodiales, impressions of which are named 
Lycopodites, may perhaps have been eligulate, homosporous forms, but in 
many of the better known examples they appear to have been hetero- 
sporous, and suggest comparison rather with Selaginella than with 
Lycopodium. In the course of a re-examination of the morphology and 
structure of Lycopodium cernuum, and a comparison of it with other 
species of Lycopodium, features of interest in the morphology of the cone 
were disclosed which indicated a remarkable similarity in plan of construc- 
tion between this Lycopodium and the cone of Spencerites. A preliminary 
account of the cone of L. cernuum will be given here, leaving the considera- 
tion of the anatomy and the comparison with other species until the full 
account is published.* 
The material of L. cernuum which has served for this work was gener- 
ously placed at my disposal by Professor Bower, for whose use it had been 
collected in Ceylon by Dr J. C. Willis. The cones attained a length of 
* While this preliminary statement was in preparation, a paper by Miss M. G. Sykes 
has appeared which deals with the subject (“Notes on the Morphology of the Sporangium- 
bearing Organs of the Lycopodiacese,” New Phytologist , vol. vii. p. 41). In this the cones 
of a number of species of Lycopodium , including L. cernuum , are described, and the distal 
position of the sporangium, the presence of lignified tissue in the sporangial stalk, and 
other points of interest are recorded for the first time. Miss Sykes suggests the derivation 
of such a plant as L. cernuum from Lepidodendron or one of its allies, with Spencerites as an 
ancient connecting link. The genus Lycopodium is regarded as exhibiting a reduction 
series, and the sporophyll in L. cernuum (from which that of L. inundatum is derived by 
reduction) as an axial structure, terminated by a single sporangium and bearing a single leaf. 
It will be evident from the following description that I have been unable to accept as 
adequate the account of the morphology of the cone of L. cernuum given by Miss Sykes. 
Further, while recognising an affinity between Spencerites and Lycopodium , I do not see 
sufficient ground for the interpretation of the morphology of the cone adopted by this author, 
nor for necessarily regarding the genus Lycopodium as a reduction series. 
