decreasing in quantity as they advance southwards. Many
of the tropical Lycopodiums are extremely beautiful: some
are of scandent habit, and many of them attain considerable
size.
Though of humble growth, and altogether unattractive
in appearance, the Club-mosses are not without their use.
IMore than one species is used in dying operations, and
several have a medicinal reputation. The powdery matter
called pollen, which is produced in considerable quantities
by our common species, is highly imflammable, and is used
in pyrotechny under the name of vegetable brimstone.
Being of a drying and healing nature, it is also used to prevent
excoriation in infants; and in pharmacy is also used
sometimes for coating pills, as it is with difficulty wetted.
The common Club-moss is emetic, and the Eir Club-moss
is a cathartic and a powerful irritant; the former is also
used in the treatment of cutaneous disorders, and is a reputed
remedy for the p lic a polonica.
The tiny species of Lycopods now known to botanists have
been thought to be the direct representatives of the vast
tree-like Lepidodendra met with in a fossil state, and which
in former ages must have rivalled our coniferous trees. The
evidence in support of this view has been questioned; but
ii
there seems no good reason to doubt, at least, that there is
a very close affinity between the two races; and, indeed,
some of the most skilful investigators of this subject find an
almost complete agreement between them.
The British species of this order are all included in the
genus Lycopodium, the name of which comes from lycos, a
wolf, and podos, a foot, and is given in allusion to the supposed
resemblance lif its forked fertile stems to the claw of
some animal, as of the wolf. Hence one species, and that
which probably suggested the name, has been called Wolf’s-
claw.
L yco po d ium a l p in um , Linnoeus. —■ Savin-leaved Clubmoss.
This kind of Club-moss gets its trivial name from the
resemblance between its branches clothed with the closely-
pressed leaves, and those of the Savin, Juniperus Sabina.
It is a pretty- little evergreen plant, forming thick wide-
spreading patches of round, tough, creeping, sparingly leafy
stems, bearing numerous other erect stems which are repeatedly
branched in a dichotomous manner, growing erect,
from three to six inches high. The colour of the plant is
a bright pleasant green. The smaller branches are set
more or less closely with the small smooth sessile leaves,
m