Lycopodiace^e of Guiana and their Allies. 41 
region on the other hand, most of those I gathered a few 
years ago near the Kaieteur Fall were new, and of the 
four gathered by Mr. IM THURN since at Roraima, all 
were new. I infer from these facts that several, possibly 
many, species still await discovery in that little explored 
region. The plants of the other orders here treated ap- 
pear to be better known, for no new species has been 
turned up by any collector of late years, though a few 
not before known as belonging to the colony have been 
gathered. 
The contemporary plants of these orders, have no uses 
of any consequence which enter into the economy of our 
lives. Some of the species of L) copodium, where grega- 
rious, are often very abundant, and are useful, when cut, 
for stable litter or packing material, as a substitute for 
straw. In these gregarious cases some produce an 
immense quantity of spores, which rise in yellow dust- 
like clouds about one's legs and body in walking 
through the herbage when it is dry. The spores are 
very inflammable, and those of L. clavatum, one of 
the commonest and widest spread species, is said to 
be used sometimes in the manufacture of certain kinds 
of fireworks. Members of all the genera are culti- 
vated as ornamental plants, most of ail the Selaginellas. 
The capsules of a species of Marsilia are eaten by the 
natives of Australia (savages of the lowest degree who 
wander about living on roots and herbage) and they once 
saved the lives of a party of ill-fated exploring naturalists. 
The Lycopodiacese are of interest for the part their pro- 
genitors held in the vegetation of the earth in the past 
far distant carboniferous age, when, compared to their 
descendants of to-day, they bore gigantic proportions, as 
F 
