FROM TIMES PAST, 
     
    
   
   
    
     CHRISTMAS GREEN - OUR CLUB-MOSSES 
     
     by Lawrence W. Watson 
     
    
   
   
    
     (Reprinted from the Prince Edward Island Magazine, 1903. Vol. 5(10), p. 353-356.) 
     
    
   
   
    
     "Something for the Christmas number - botanical, seasonable and 
     
     of local interest." This my commission; what shall it be? 
     
    

    
     All the wild flowers have bloomed and passed, the fields are 
     
     covered with snow, the trees have put off their vesture of leaves and 
     
     only the evergreens (spruces, hemlock and fir, with cedar principally 
     
     in the western county) stand green against the background of white, or I 
     
     the blue of the heavens coursed by clouds. At some other time we may 
     
     consider these interesting evergreen trees, from which we take “3‘ 
     
     branches to decorate our churches and our homes for Christmastide and 
     
     for other festive occasions. For the present let us take the Ground-spruces which 
     
     we weave into festoons for similar purposes or use as a setting of contrasting 
     
     green for the wild flowers which we gather when foliage is scarce. 
     
    

    
     These running evergreens adorn almost every grove and wood. Scarcely a way- 
     
     side coppice without their pretty tracery, and many a mossy bog- 
     
     surface is covered by a network of their vines. From early spring- 
     
     time until snow comes and covers them in their winter sleep, these 
     
     pretty plants lend ornament to wood and swamp, irresistably 
     
     appealing to our appreciation of the beautiful in Nature. 
     
    

    
     Little children, lads and maidens, twine the running stems to 
     
     ornament their hats; florists use their tufted branches to emphasize 
     
     the charm of colour, shape and outline of blossoms in bouquets; and, 
     
     when times of rejoicing come and homes and places of assembly_are 
     
     tp be decorated, to add to the atmosphere of festivity, we bring into 
     
     service the trailing Christmas-Green and Running Pine. - 
     
    

    
     Naturally, flowering plants have a larger clientele of admirers. 
     
     and students, but few persons can resist the charms of Ferns. Next 
     
     to those latter in point of favour come the Club-mosses. These are 
     
     very aristocratic plants, of ancient lineage, tracing their ancestry 
     
     back to the earliest appearance of terrestrial plants upon the 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     nt,;4mmmhm- earth. In the Lepidodendron and Sigillaria (so abundant in the coal 
     
     gfififlfimgfifif measures of the carboniferous period of geologists) we have the 
     
    
   
   
    
     ancient allies or ancestors of our humble Club-mosses. These, the 
     
     monarchs of the forest primeval, attained a height of one 
     
     hundred feet or more. Their trunks measured three feet in 
     
     diameter, and in some forms the leaves were upwards of two 
     
     feet long. 
     
    

    
     It is only another instance of family reverses. 
     
     Another Pharoah has risen in Egypt; a new dynasty has 
     
     succeeded to supremacy. The departed greatness of the 
     
     mighty race is recorded in the enduring pages of the rocks, 
     
     but the modern representatives of the ancient autocrats 
     
     are humble forms, content to earn a modest living under 
     
     the shadow of their conquerors' vastness. Yet they are 
     
     too proud to beg. They do not flaunt in gay attire, but 
     
     deport themselves in an unostentatious manner befitting 
     
     their reversed circumstances. 
     
    

    
     They do not bear flowers to produce seeds, but, like 
     
     their neighbours and kinsmen, the Ferns, (these, too, figJLymyfiMm<m$umm 1 
     
     have fallen from a high estate) they produce spores from Gmumbhnm 
     
    
   
   
    
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