MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 375 



FIELD HORSETAIL 



Equisetuni 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 light 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. annotiiimn. 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-cylindric, composed 

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

 basal 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. 



