LYCOPODIUM CLAVATUM (Lyco.)

Botanical name : Lycopodium clavatum Linn. Family: Lycopodiaceae

Common names : Hindi: Bendarli; English: Club moss; French: Soufre Vegetal; German: Barlappsamen.

Description : A perennial, evergreen club-moss, with a trailing branching stem, several meter long and thickly beset with linear-awl-shaped, flat, ribless, smooth leaves, tipped with fine bristle, curved upward and of a light green colour. The fructification is in terminal spikes, single or in pairs, with crowded, ovate, entire pointed scales, bearing in axil a transversely oval sporangium, which splits nearly to base and contains the narrow reticulate spores. Spores are pale yellow and form very mobile powder. Spores odourless and tasteless.

Microscopical : Each spore is covered by an internal thin intine and an external considerably thick exine with a germ pore. When the spores are crushed the ruptured spores yield small drop of fixed oil. Spores very uniform in shape and size, maximum width from 21 to 30 µ, being most commonly about 25 µ, each spore having the shape of triangular pyramid with a convex base being the fourth part of sphere divided by plane surfaces radiating from its centre; convex surface covered with a fine network of raised ridges, the meshes being 4 to 6 sided; 3 flat, triangular surfaces have a similar network near the bases, but are smooth nearly towards apex, strong ridges lines mark of union of flat faces.

Habitat : Found from Kumaon Eastwards in Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Khasi, Khushai hills, Manipur and in Western Ghats of India. Also in Europe and U.S.A.

History and authority : Introduced into Homoeopathic practice after proving in 1828 by Hahnemann. Allen’s Encyclop. Mat. Med. Vol. VI, 1.

Part used : The spores.

Preparation : (a) Mother Tincture φ Drug strength 1/10 Lycopodium Clavatum (spores crushed) 100 g Strong Alcohol in sufficient quantity to make one thousand millilitres of the Mother Tincture.

(b) Potencies: 2x and higher with Dispensing Alcohol.

Old method : Class IV