Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/135

Campbell's Islands.] apices of the branches quadrifarious, in others they are so almost throughout the branches, it is probably not different from, — 6. L.alpinum, in which they are sometimes distichous, when the more sessile spikes alone distinguish it from L. complanatum. The quadrifarious disposition arises from the stipules becoming leaves. Of other species, referred to this section in the Botanical Miscellany (1. a), there are no specimens in Herb. Hook. L. alpinum I have mentioned as perhaps a doubtful species of this section, its leaves being sometimes imbricated even in more than four series ; in some Norway specimens the spike-bearing branches are elongated and become rather bare of leaves, which are also more appressed, thus exhibiting a manifest approach towards some species with pedicellate fructification. It may further be remarked that L, complanaturn is not a British, and L. alpinum hardly an American plant.

The leaves of L. de/idroideum, Mich., a species apparently confined to North America, are sometimes partially distichous ; they are not, however, coadunate with the branches, as in this group.

2. Lycopoditjm clavatum, L., rar — L. magellanicum, Swart: Syn. Fil. p. 180. Wdld. Sp. PL vol. v. p. 15. Gaud. Fl. Ins. Mai. in Ann. Sc. Nat. vol. v. p. 98, and in Freycinet, Toy. Bot. pp. 130 and 282. I/Urv. Fl. Ins. Mai. in Mem. Soc. Linn. Paris, vol. iv. p. 597.

Has. Lord Auckland's group and Campbell's Island ; on the hills, not uncommon, but only found at a considerable elevation.

These specimens differ in no respect from others which I have gathered in the Falkland Islands and on Mount Wellington, Tasmania, and have considered to be the L. fastigiatwm, Brown, (Prodr., p. 165). The Falkland Island plant, which is also common in Antarctic America, varies from one to many inches in height. The caudcx is ascending or creeping, often one to two feet long, naked or clothed with leaves ; the branches are erect and divide in a panicled form, and are copiously leafy ; the leaves are subacute or acuminated, always more or less curved, but are at some times much more numerous than at others. In starved alpine specimens the spikes are solitary and often sessile : as the plant inhabits lower levels and more favourable situations its peduncles elongate, fork or branch, and bear two or more spikes : the spikes themselves vary from to 2 inches long, with the scales ovatolanceolate, acuminate, rather variable in length, and more or less recurved.

The species of Lycopodium are liable to great variation, as a copious suite of any one will readily show ; many of them have been examined and characterized with reference to the country they inhabit and their congeners in that country, and have not been compared with the whole genus. As our collections increase, specimens are constantly presenting themselves, which tend to unite the species of two distant localities ; partly because they par- take of the characters of both, and also because, coming as many do, from intermediate stations, they strengthen the supposition that such are mere forms of one widely diffused plant. It is seldom that a collector has the time, and few have the inclination, to preserve such a series of specimens from one locality, as will give any idea of the amount of variation a species may be liable to, in a limited area : on the other hand, the extreme varieties are col- lected as two different species, and a future author is often obliged to describe as a third an unrecorded state of what actually exists in both situations. TheX. magella/nicum, Sw., presents a case in point. In the Falkland Islands, states of it are not unfrequently met within all respects resembbng the L. clavatum, excepting that the leaves are not