THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 41 



aid to warm our bodies, afford power to our machines, and de- 

 plete our pocket-books in these latter days. 



The fertile shoots of the plant, so strikingly suggestive 

 of the columns in Egyptian temples, are formed in the earth 

 long before their appearance above ground. They are hollow 

 and jointed, marked by swellings or nodes. The cylindric 

 portions between one node and another, are called internodes. 

 Such, when closely examined, are seen to be composed of thin, 

 brownish, membranous scales, connected at their bases by rings 

 surrounding the stem, with sharp-pointed, alternate apices. 

 These are the leaves of the plants. The stems proper possess 

 numerous parallel ridges or striae, alternating with the fur- 

 rows between. Curiously, too, the ridges of one node alternate 

 with those of the corresponding internode, both above and be- 

 low. 



In comparing the fertile frond to an Egyptian column, 

 attention should be directed to the terminal fruiting parts, so 

 like the capitals of these oriental columns. These in the old 

 temples were vennillion, azure, or green. Whether anything 

 in nature suggested the colors, it is impossible to say, but in 

 the glowing lights of the desert, it may have been possible. 

 The whole architecture scheme may be, on our part, a pure riot 

 of fancy, but we have seen pictures of columns recently un- 

 earthed in the Nile region, which appear to confirm the notion. 



Now let us dissect one of these capitals and observe some- 

 what the manner of reproduction, curiously interesting as it is 

 to the microscopist or amateur. Horse-tails have no true 

 flowers, that is, of stamens and pistils with or without floral 

 envelopes. The so-called capitals terminating the fruit-bear- 

 ing fronds vary in form from ellipsoid to more or less cylindri- 

 cal. If we remove some one of the shield-shaped bodies of 

 which these capitals are composed and examine it with a low- 

 power lens of a compound miscroscope, it will be found to 

 stand on a stalk and to have several long sacs projecting from 

 the inner surface. These are the sporangia and produce the 



