THE ORIGIN OF PLANT LIFE ON THE LAND. 105 



height; 1 but their foliage and fructification were not correspond- 

 ingly advanced. Thus the family of the Equisetacese culminated 

 in the Carboniferous, and thenceforth descended gradually in 

 the succeeding ages, leaving the comparatively humble Mares'- 

 tails and Scouring Rushes as its present representatives. 

 The Ferns of the Carboniferous, hke those of the Devonian, 



Fig. 97.— Carboniferous Ferns. 



A, Odontopteris subcuncata (Bunbury). b, Neuro/>teris cordata (Brongniart). 

 C, Alethopterii ionchitica (Brongniart), 



presented both gigantic forms like those of the tree-ferns of 

 the modern tropics, and delicate herbaceous pecies, and these 

 in g'-eat profusion. On the whole, they do not strike the 

 observer as very dissimilar from those of modern times. A 

 more critical examination, however, shows that the bulk of the 

 tree-ferns of the Devonian and Carboniferous are allied not to 

 1 Calamodendron and Aithropitys are forms of this kind. 



