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tion, showing the points where annual growths have commenced
and terminated. It is also known by its narrow
leaves spreading out from the stem on all sides, and arranged
in five indistinct rows. It is a large-growing
species, often a foot high, with irregularly branched stems,
which, after they have produced fruit-spikes, or have reached
an equivalent age, become depressed, rooting at intervals, and
throw up another series of upright branches. Mr. Newman,
in his account of these plants, states that the spike is
usually on the sixth or seventh joint or annual growth of
the branches; and this appears to be pretty generally the
case, though the branches are by no means all fertile. The
annual increase of the stems is well marked by the closer
pressed and shorter leaves which occur at the upper part
of each growth, and this is what gives the interrupted appearance
to the stems. The leaves, which do not decay for
several years, are linear-lanceolate in form, and have their
margins minutely serrulate, and their apex drawn out and
terminating in a rigid point; they are attached directly to
the stems without stalks, and are arranged in an indistinctly
spiral or somewhat five-ranked order. The lower leaves,
that is to say, those remaining on the older portions of the
stem, are more spreading than those on the younger
growth, and indeed on the oldest portions often become
somewhat deflexed; they have a yellowish-green colour,
and are of a hard rigid texture; they have moreover a
stout midrib, prominent at the hack.
The spike of fructification is in this species perfectly
stalkless, being seated directly on the termination of the
leafy branch. It is about an inch long, of an oblong form,
and consists of closely overlapping bracts, of a roundish-
ovate form, having a long narrow point and jagged membranous
margins. In the axil of the bracts is produced a
large reniform capsule, containing numerous minute pale
yellowish spores. The bracts become reflexed when these
spores have escaped from the burst capsule.
This a rare species, confined to wild mountainous localities,
occurring in the Scottish Highlands, and formerly, if
not now, plentiful on Glyder, in Caernarvonshire. It is
not known to occur in England or Ireland, but is plentiful
in the pine-forests of the north of Europe, and in some
parts of North America.
L y co po dium olavatum, Linnoeus.— Common Clnb-inoss.
(Plate XX. fig. 6.)
This sort of Club-moss is of procumbent habit, having
vigorous creeping stems often many feet in length, much