114 



•aquatic JLitt 



The Water Horse-tail 



J. CHARLES WOBLER 



During the Carboniferous Age, ferns 

 and allied plants were the dominant fea- 

 tures of the landscape. The giant cala- 

 mite, now known solely from its fossil 

 remains, grew as large as our present- 

 day forest trees, and is the prototype of 

 our scouring rushes or horse-tails — the 

 EquiS£Tacea£. These vary in height 

 from a few inches to thirty feet, and are 

 seldom greater than two inches in diam- 

 eter. The average American species is 

 but a few feet high, and as thick as a 

 lead pencil, often less. About twenty 

 species are known, mostly from the tem- 

 perate zones, North America containing 

 more than half of the species in the world. 

 The name Equisetum is from two Latin 

 words meaning "horse" and "bristle." 

 While its application is not always ap- 

 parent, some kinds have many slender 

 branches that render the plant not unlike 

 the tail of a horse. 



The Water Horse-tail, Equisetum flu- 

 viatile, in North America extends from 

 Virginia northward and westward ; occur- 

 ring in Europe and Asia, it belts the earth 

 in a zone perhaps a thousand miles wide. 

 As its name implies, it prefers the water, 

 growing in the sand and mud of shallow 

 ponds and ditches. With its root-stock 

 protected by the unfrozen mud, it early 

 feels the vernal impulse and shoots its 

 stems upward. 



The root-stock and stems are made up 

 of sections or joints quite unlike any 

 other plant. One writer likens them to a 

 line of drain pipe, each section of which 

 fits into the flaring end of the one below. 

 Growth consists merely of the lengthen- 

 ing of the sections or internodes. The 

 flaring top of each section is composed 

 of a circle of teeth that are said to be the 

 remains of leaves which were present in 

 an ancestral form. Existing species bear 

 no leaves, the stems and branches per- 



forming the necessary functions. The 

 stems are produced from the nodes of the 

 creeping root-stock. 



Spores are born in cone-like spikes or 

 catkins, at the tips of the stems. Not all 

 stems are fertile, but end in a whip-like 

 prolongation. Each spore has two hair- 

 like appendages attached by the middle. 

 When moist they coil around the spore. 

 As the catkin matures and dries, the 

 elators uncoil and assist the spores to 

 float about in the air. Too, they are 

 equally important in entangling two or 

 more spores together, as the development 

 of two spores in close proximity is neces- 

 sary to reproduction. The actions of the 

 elators may readily be observed with a 

 magnifying glass. 



The Water Horse-tail might be grown 

 in a pan or box in a breeding tank. In 

 winter it should require no attention if 

 the water does not freeze solid. If this 

 is apt to happen, place the pan in a cold 

 cellar, keeping it moist. 



The **Guppy" in Golf 



It was the office of the great sporting 

 newspaper. The golf editor was home, 

 sick. The baseball editor was doing the 

 golf stuff. 



"Which is the better course," wrote 

 in a Constant Reader, "to fuzzle one's 

 putt or to fetter on the tee ?" 



The b. b. ed. tilted back in his chair, 

 smoked a cigarette and wrote : 



"Should a player snaggle his iron, it 

 is permissible for him to fuzzle his putt ; 

 but a better plan would be to drop his 

 guppy into the pringle and snoodle it out 

 with a niblick." — The Guide to Nature. 



At the twenty-eighth meeting of the 

 Aquarium Society of Washington, held 

 in the Zoological Laboratory of the 

 George Washington University, May 

 ioth, Dr. R. W. Shufeldt read a paper 

 on the Basses of the waters of the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia. 



