196 HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS.
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axils two kinds of fructification. The lower bracts bear in
their axils large three-celled spore-cases, containing three
globular oophoridia, or four-celled cases containing four of
these bodies. The upper bracts bear subreniform spore-
cases, containing the minute pulverulent pollen-like sporules.
This is the only native species which produces the two separate
kinds of spore-cases.
Though hardly to be considered a rare species, this is one
of the less common; it is found in the north of England,
Wales, and Scotland, in which latter country it is pretty
generally distributed. In Ireland it is more common. The
localities which it prefers are wet boggy places by the side
of mountain rills.
L yco po d ium S elago, Linnceus.— Eir Club-moss. (Plate
XX. fig. 5.)
The Pir Club-moss is one of our commoner kinds, and
in its parts is the most massive of any. It is, moreover,
usually of upright growth, the others being decumbent,
though of this there is a variety or mountain form sometimes
met with, in which the stems are constantly prostrate.
Indeed, in the commoner forms the upright habit, which is
evidently natural to it, often gives way before the force of
gravity, and in such cases the lower part of the stems is
found to be somewhat recumbent, while the upper parts
retain their upright position. The stems vary from three or
four to six or eight inches high, and are branched two or
three times in a two-forked manner; they are stout, tough,
rigid, nearly level-topped, and thickly clothed with imbricated
leaves arranged in eight rows. These leaves are lanceshaped
and acute, of a shining green, rigid and leathery in
texture, and smooth on the margin; in plants which have
grown in exposed places they are shorter and more closely
pressed to the stem; while in plants developed in more
confined and humid situations they are longer, less rigid,
and more spreading.
The fructification is in this species not borne in terminal
spikes as in the other kinds, but is produced in the axils of
the leaves along the upper branches of the stem. The spore-
cases are rather large, sessile, kidney-shaped, two-valved, and
filled with minute pale yellow sporules.
Besides the ordinary sporules, the plant is furnished with
other means of propagation in the shape of deciduous buds,
produced for the most part in the axils of the leaves, about
the apices of the branches. These buds separate spontaneously,
fall to the ground, and there vegetate, first producing
roots, and then elongating into a leafy stem. They are
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