348 



FOUNDATIONS OF BOTANY 



same region can hardly be distinguished from the earth in 

 which they grow. 



416. Plants of Uneatable Texture. Whenever tender 

 and juicy herbage is to be had, plants of bard and stringy 

 texture are left untouched. The flinty-stemmed scouring- 

 rushes (Equisetum, Sect. 361) and the dry, tough rushes 

 are familiar examples of uneatable plants of damp soil. 

 In pastures there grow such peren- 

 nials as the bracken fern and the 

 hardback of New England and the 

 iron weed and vervains of the Cen- 

 tral States, which are so harsh and 

 woody that the hungriest browsing 



FIG. 243. Spiny Leaves of Barberry. 



animal is rarely, if ever, seen to molest them. Still other 

 plants, like the knotgrass and cinquefoil of our dooryards, 

 are doubly safe, from their growing so close to the ground 

 as to be hard to graze and from their woody and unpala- 

 table nature. The date-palm (which can easily be raised 

 from the seed in the schoolroom or the laboratory) is an 

 excellent instance of the same uneatable quality, found 

 in a tropical or sub-tropical plant, 



