EOUISETACE^— HORSETAIL FAMILY 



FIELD HORSETAIL 



Equisetum arvense 



In early spring there appear in dry, sterile places, 

 often on the slope of a railway embankment, in loca- 

 tions where few other plants can even exist, myriads 

 of brownish yellow stems four to twelve inches high, of 

 the same size from top to bottom, and each topped with 

 a curious, cone-like head. These are the fertile stems 

 of the Field Horsetail. There is something very 

 mushroom-like in the rapidity with which these fleshy 

 stems mature when once they have started to develop, 

 and the likeness is increased by the fact that there is 

 no green about them and also that they multiply by 

 means of spores instead of flowers and seeds. 



Each fertile stem is decorated at intervals with 

 several slightly bulging rings of slender, dark, sharp- 

 pointed scales that are united at the base and point 

 upward. The blossom, which is not at all a blossom to 

 a botanist, is a cone at the very top of the odd-looking 

 stem, and is made up of row after row of tiny disks 

 set around the central stalk. Before the cone is ripe 

 there extends back from the edge of each disk a row of 

 little sacs stuffed so full of green spores that they look 

 united like a row of tiny green ridges. The upper- 

 most disks discharge their spores first and the empty 

 sacs are whitish and hang dishevelled around the disks. 



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