314 Lang. —The Prothallus 
podiaceae. But any serial relationship between the few 
surviving groups is highly improbable. This is at least 
equally the case when Lycopodium and Selaginella are com- 
pared, where such direct connexion is frequently assumed to 
exist. While these two genera are rightly grouped together, 
there appears to be no sufficient evidence for the view that 
they constitute a direct series. In connexion with this, 
Bruchmann justly points out the ‘ far-reaching separation ’ 
between them. With that author’s further conclusion, I am 
however unable to agree. He says, ‘ according to such com- 
parison of the two families of Lycopodium and Selaginella , 
their mutual relationship does not appear to be a close one, 
and in my opinion the distinction between the Selaginellas 
and the Gymnosperms would be less than that between the 
Selaginellas and Lycopodiums 1 .’ 
The relationship of Lycopodium and Selaginella is none the 
less clear because the connexion lay far back in the history 
of the Lycopodiaceae. For all that we know to the con- 
trary, these two genera may have persisted with but slight 
modifications since Carboniferous times, having escaped the 
extinction which was the fate of all the larger forms. That 
the Coniferae arose from some heterosporous forms, whether 
Pterictophyta or more primitve Gymnosperms, about that 
period may be regarded as probable ; but little or nothing 
points to a close relationship between Selaginella and that 
group, though the life-history of the former aids us in 
picturing the passage-forms from the Vascular Cryptogams 
to the Conifers. 
The only other group of Vascular Cryptogams that need 
be referred to is the Ophioglossaceae. Without entering 
into the general question of the relationship between that 
family and the Lycopodiaceae which has been suggested 2 on 
grounds afforded by a detailed comparison of the sporophyte, 
it may be pointed out that the fuller information regarding 
1 Loc. cit., 1898, p. no. 
1 Bower, Studies in the Morphology of Spore-producing Members : II. Ophio- 
glossaceae. London, 1896. 
