44 THE HORSETAILS. 



a wide variety of situations, and is often found in dry 

 and sterile places in which few other plants can exist, 

 such as dry roadsides and railway embankments. In 

 the latter situation it thrives exceedingly well, and, 

 though rooted in cinders, covers vast stretches of the 

 surface with a pleasing mat of its yellowish-green sterile 

 stems. All who have ever travelled a dozen miles on a 

 railway in summer have doubtless seen this plant. 



The appearance of the fertile stems of this species is 

 among the first signs of returning spring. They come 

 almost before the grass has begun to green, often start- 

 ing up in such numbers as to give a strong tinge of their 

 own warm flesh-colour to the sunny slopes on -which 

 they grow. There is something very mushroom-like in 

 the rapidity with which these fleshy stems mature when 

 once they have started to develop, and the likeness is 

 increased by the fact that, like the mushroom, they have 

 no green in their composition. 



The first stems are usually fully developed and show- 

 ing their spores long before one has discovered that they 

 have started. If one begins the season early enough, 

 however, he may find just beneath the surface of the 

 earth numerous buds in which the fruiting-cones are all 

 complete and waiting for the first warm day to call them 

 forth. Indeed, as early as midsummer of the preceding 

 year these buds may be found. Just before growth 

 commences they often measure an inch or more in 

 length and half an inch in diameter. At this time the 

 sheaths are also fully developed, and overlap one another 

 like shingles on a roof, thus completely enclosing the 

 catkin. Growth consists in the development of the 

 internodes, and often proceeds at the rate of nearly two 

 inches a day. At maturity they are from a few inches 



