The ferns of Great Britain and their allies, the club-mosses, pepperworts, and horsetails / by Anne Pratt ; published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education, appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Anne Pratt

Date:: [1871]

Credit: The ferns of Great Britain and their allies, the club-mosses, pepperworts, and horsetails / by Anne Pratt ; published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education, appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$This is a pretty evergreen species, of a much brighter tint than any other of our Club-mosses. It grows in great abundance on the grassy slopes in the hilly and mountain- ous districts of Scotland, large tracts of ground being rendered of a rich green by its trailing stems. It occurs in England on the mountains of Yorkshire and Cumber- land, and grows in a few Welsh localities. It is found at the elevation of a thousand yards on Carnedd David in Carnarvonshire; and on all the northern mountainous regions of Europe, as in Lapland, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Germany, and Switzerland, it is a common ])lant, as it also is on the high lands of Canada. Its English name was given from the resemblance of its branches, with the leaves pressed closely around them, to those of the Savine {Juniperu^ Sabina). The roots are very strong and wiry, and are formed of branched, downy, stout fibres. The stem creeps close to the sur- face of the grouiul, and lx‘ars, at irregular intervals, several upright branches, which are repeatedly divided in a forked manner, forming a close tuft, level at the top, and somewhat fan-sha|)ed. The creeping stem, which is sometimes four feet long, has few leaves; but the smaller branches of the erect stems have small leaves pressed closely round them. These are lanceolate and pointed, the edges without serratures, and they are somewhat boat-shaped, being hollowed out in front where they fit the stem. The leaves overlap each other, and are in four rows, the branches having a somewhat s(juare form. Those branches bearing the spikes of fructification are rather longer than the barren ones, and twice forked. The scales are membranaceous, flat.$