56 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIONS. 



scales separate, and show a cii-cle of spore-eases on their under-surface, each of which 

 opens by an internal slit and discharges the spores. These spores are remarkable for 

 beinn; surrounded by two spiral filamenls called elaters,^ which are coiled tightly 

 round them. When uncoiled, which in a dry state of the air they will become, 

 these filaments are seen to be attached by their centre to a common point of the 

 spore, so as to make them look like four legs, each with a swollen termination like 

 a foot, bearing the spore at their point of junction. They are highly hygrometric, 

 and if a number of tliem be laid on a piece of glass under a microscope, and breathed 

 upon and allowed to dry alternati'ly, they may be seen to twist and untwist them- 

 selves and wriggle about as if they were endowed with life. 



Equiseta are humble plants, two or three feet high, though occasionally attaining 

 a larger size. Tlicy appear to bo the degrnerate descendants of gigantic ancestors, 

 which under the names C'alamite and Stigmaria are now found (together with gigantic 

 Lycopodia) fossilized in our Coal-measures. 



They are rigid, hard, plants, rough to the touch, owing to the quantity of 

 silex which tlieir cuticle contains. In Equisdiim ]ii/i'}itide this is so great as to make 

 it useful for polisliing furniture and metals, for wliich purpose it is sold under tlic 

 name of Diitch-rush. A section of this cuticle, when submitted to a microscope and 

 viewed liy polarized light, forms a very beautiful object; the crystals of silica are 

 are clearly seen arranged in rows running parallel with the axis of the stem. 



Equiseta have been generally classed near to Ferns, being considered their near 

 allies; but Lindley says that "their relation to Ferns is not obvious." In the 

 possession of elaters they resemble JimgerviiannidcecB and Marclumtiacem — and, as lie 

 says, "the resemblance between the peltate scales of E(|uisetum and the umbrella- 

 like heads of the spore-cases in Marchantia is too obvious not to strike the most 

 unpractised observer." It is with these that he thinks Equisetum has its nearest 

 affinity. 



1 have found one species, and but one, in Burma : 



Equisetum, Linnaiis. 

 E. DEBiLE, Eoxb. 



Order LYCOPODIACE^ (Club-mosses). 



An order of Acrogens, with one- to three-celled axillary spore-cases or theeoe, 

 witliuut any jointed ring. Reproductive bodies all of one kind. 



Lycopoditii,- Liiinmts. 



Erect, pendulous, or creeping plants, with clo.sely imliricated, naiTow, rigid 

 leaves, and a swollen or club-shaped termination, in the axils of the scales of which 

 the tliecK, or spore-eases, are situated. Spore-cases kidney-shaped, one-celled, opening 

 by two valves, many-seeded. The fruit-heads or club-like terminations are sometimes 

 branched, as in L. (lavatHm. They may be likened to large mosses, or to diminutive 

 fir-trees; indeed, " they are intermediate between ferns and cone-bearing trees on the 

 one hand, and between ferns and mosses on the other" (Lindley). 



They are the dwarf representatives of the gigantic Lepid'jdfiidni and Siyillarlee 

 which flourished in tlie forests of the primaeval world, and the fossil remains of 

 which are found abundantly in our Coal-measures. 



' Elatcr — eKaTrip, plnocntii' genus. Placenta, botanically, is that part of the interior of an ovarj- 

 ■nliere the ovule originates : or the name may be given from the meaning of the Greek word for 

 " to ilrive," because it scatters or prcppels the spores. 



1 have used the word e/atir here for the spiral threads of the spores of F'/iiisc/mn because Lindley 

 uses it, but they are both structurally and morphologically dilteieut from the proper elater of Jiiiii;er- 

 maniiiiicttv. In the former, they are attached to the spore, and according to Berkeley are but the 

 splitting up the outer coat of the spore — "nothing more than the unrolled spiral of which that outer 

 coat consists." Whereas, in the latter, they are wholly independent bodies, attached to the valves 

 of the spore-cases, and instead of being simple threads, are elongated sausage-like hyaline sacs, in 

 which a double s])iral lies coiled up. 



- Lycopodium. \vkos, a h olf, and iroi/s-7ro5us, foot - from a fancied resemblance. 



