MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 375 



FIELD HORSETAIL 



Equisetum arvense. Horsetail Family 



Stems: annual, hollow, jointed, provided with scattered stomata, the 

 fertile appearing in early spring before the sterile. Leaves : reduced to 

 sheaths at the joints. 



This is a rush-like plant of a very rank coarse nature, which 

 grows in ditches and along the sandy waysides. The fertile 

 stems, which appear in the early spring, grow from four to ten 

 inches high and are Hght brown in colour. They are not 

 branched, but terminate in a solitary cone-like spike. The 

 sterile stems, which appear later on in the season, are green 

 and rather slender, averaging eighteen inches in height. 

 They have numerous verticillate branches, the sheaths of 

 which are four-toothed. 



STIFF CLUB-MOSS 



Lycopodium annotimim. Club-moss Family 



Stems : much branched, slender, prostrate and creeping, rather stiff, 

 the branches ascending, sparingly forked. Leaves uniform, spreading, 

 five-ranked, rigid, linear-lanceolate, minutely serrulate, nerved below; 

 spikes solitary at the ends of the branches, oblong-cyHndric, composed 

 of ovate bracts, each with a sporange in its axil ; spores smooth on the 

 hasal surface. 



A moss-like herb, with numerous tiny leaves completely 

 covering the short branches, which terminate in dense oblong 

 spikes composed of small bracts, each one with a sac con- 

 taining spores in its axil. 



L. clavatum, or Creeping Club-moss, has extensively creep- 

 ing stems and short, irregular, densely leafy branches. The 

 leaves are much crowded, incurved, and tipped with tiny 

 bristles, and the spikes grow in clusters of from one to four 

 on long peduncles. 



