Lycopodiace^e of Guiana and their Allies. 55 
inhabit temperate regions, the great majority being 
distributed through North America and Europe, and in 
less abundance in Australasia, but only sparingly over the 
equatorial belt. There are five tropical American spe- 
cies, found mostly at high altitudes, extending from Cuba 
to the Andes of Peru. In the journal of Botany for 
1880 Mr. Baker published a Synopsis of the genus, and 
described forty-six species. 
Order II-Marsileacea. 
Rootstock free-creeping, slender, vernation circinate. Leaves linear- 
filiform, or 4-foliate, at the summit of slender ere6t petioles. Capsules 
scattered or serial on the rootstock or the base of the petioles, globose 
or ovate-oblong, coriaceous, 2-4-valved, dehiscent, sporangia membra- 
nous, indehiscent. Spores of two kinds, macrospores and microspores. 
This order like the preceding contains two dissimilar 
genera. One, Pilularia, is confined to temperate regions, 
the other, Mar sited, to tropical, and it is here represented. 
Qonus I.-Marsilea, Lin. 
Capsules stipitate, 1-2 li. diameter, serial on the rootstock or the base 
of the petioles, coriaceous, dehiscent, bivalved, containing numerous 
sack-like membranous transverse sporangia which contain both macros - 
pores and microspores. Rootstock creeping. Leaves 4-foliate, at the 
summit of slender erecl: petioles. 
These are small herbaceous plants that grow grega- 
riously in still fresh water, floating on the surface, and are 
distributed through the tropical and the warm and cool tem- 
perate regions of the world. About forty or fifty .species 
are known. The capsules are small pea or bean-like 
bodies, leathery in substance, containing a series of pale 
thinly membranous transverse sack-like cells, in -which 
the spores stand lengthwise, 3-serial, the larger oblong, 
macrospores, forming one series, the central, and the 
smaller (microspores) two. The former are several 
