370 
LYCOPODIACE.E. 
species. It is described and figured by Vaillant and Dillenius,^ 
but the latter author has given it a branched and luxuriant ap- 
pearance which I have never seen it assume. The figure in 
Sowerby’s ‘ English Botany ’f gives a good idea of the plant. 
Tragus and Gerarde do not mention the plant, and although 
Plukenet and Morison have been quoted as authorities, I much 
doubt the correctness of the references. Its medical virtues 
have not been recorded. 
The Marsh Club-Moss is an insignificant and by no means 
striking plant. In its foliage and solitary spike it more nearly 
resembles Z^copodmm clavatum than any other British species ; 
but the nearly circular capsule and other distinguishing charac- 
ters separate it widely from that, and indeed from all the other 
indigenous Lycopodia. 
The roots are stout ; they do not penetrate the earth so deeply 
as those of either of the species previously described : the 
prostrate stem creeps close to the soil, and is occasionally, but 
rarely, branched, the branches still remaining prostrate ; the 
stem appears to be of slow growth, and never increases in size 
in the same way as that of the species before described ; be- 
tween the points where it is attached by the roots, the stem 
sometimes assumes an arched appearance. 
The growth of each year, with the exception of its extreme 
point (which remains firmly rooted to the ground), dies during 
the succeeding winter, the dead portion for some months ad- 
hering to the soil, and even after decay leaving a conspicuous 
black line on the surface. In the autumn each plant throws out 
an erect solitary spike, situated on a foot-stalk which usually 
rather exceeds the spike itself in length. 
Every part of the plant is densely clothed with linear acute 
leaves ; those on the prostrate stem are invariably curved up- 
wards ; on the footstalk they are rather more scattered, erect 
and without curvature. The leaves or bracts on the spike differ 
from the others in being broader at the base, and are not unfre- 
quently furnished with a single tooth on each side. The cap- 
sules are situated at the base of the bracts ; they are nearly 
spherical, and of a pale yellowish green colour. 
t Eng. Bot. 239. 
* Hist. Muse. tab. 62, fig. 7. 
