The Life-History of the Lycopodiaceæ

Abstract

THE area within which really notable discoveries are possible—at any rate amongst the higher plants—in the field of vegetable morphology is becoming very circumscribed. For some time the complete life-history of the Lycopodiacece has been a missing chapter in our text-books. Hofmeister, like others, had unsuccessfully sown the spores, and he could only speculate as to the probability of their producing—if the proper conditions could be known—a prothallium like ferns. And Spring, the monographer of the group, had hazarded the extraordinary theory that the existing representatives of the group were only represented by male plants, the females having been lost in some remote geological catastrophe.