Selago

This plant, I should think it probable, is the *Lycopodium clavatum* of modern botanists; the seeds of which, when ripe, and when the plant is struck, rise like smoke ("fumum" of Pliny), and may have been supposed, from their remarkable inflammability when dashed into a flame, igniting with a sudden flash, to have possessed wonderful virtues. The species known as *Lycopodium selago* is rare in comparison to the other.