204 WAYSIDE WEEDS. 



but with its fertile, spike unbrandied, and its plain 

 barren frond still less fern-like tlian that of its 

 near relative just mentioned. 



In the same category of flowerless plants, but 

 still fiirther diverging from the ferns, both in 

 appearance and habit, and yet so common in some 

 of its species that it is truly a " Wayside Weed," 

 we have the horse-tail tribe (Fig. 115). The hol- 

 low, black jointed, creamy-coloured, fertile stems, 

 crowned with their black masses of spores, can 

 hardly escape observation in spring, although 

 an inexperienced observer would scarcely associate 

 these with the later showing barren spikes> rough 

 and wiry, and many jointed, and many branched. 



