810 Obdbb ISV.— MAESILBACEjE. 



SuBKiNGDOM, CEYPTOaAMIA, 



Or Flowerless Plants. Vegetables destitute of true stamena 

 and pistils, gradually descending to a mere cellular structure, 

 with reproductive organs of 1 or 2 kinds, producing, instead of 

 seeds, rainute, dust-like bodies (spores) having neither integu- 

 ments nor embryo. 



Province, ACEOGENS. Flowerless plants, having a regular 

 stem or axis which grows by the extension of the apex only, 

 without increasing in diameter, generally with leaves, and 

 composed of cellular tissue and scalariform ducts. (Ferns, 

 Mosses, Club-mosses, Horsetails, etc.) 



Ordbk CLVII. MARSILEACE^. Pbppeewokts. 



Serbs creeping or floating, with the leaves petiolate or sessile, cireinate in verna- 

 tion. Prvit (sporooarps) situated at tile base of tlie leaves or leafstalljs, containing 

 the capsular sporanges of one Isiud with 2 kinds of spores, or of 2 kinds -with the 

 different spores separated. 



Genera 6, species 20 ? inhabiting ditches and inundated places in nearly all countries, but 

 chiefiy in toaiijorate latitudes. 



1.' MARSIL'EA, L. Sporocarps at the base of the leaf-stalks, of one 

 kind, 2-celled, cells transversely many. celled ; spores inserted on each 

 horizontal placenta. — 2|! Stems creeping, rooting; Ivs. petiolate. 



1 M. quadrifolia L ? Glabrous ; prostrate stems slender, -wiry, 8 to 16' long ; 

 Ivs. palmately 4-foliate, on filitorm petioles 1 to 3' high, Ifts. broadly obovate or 

 fan-shaped, obtuse; fr. (sporocarps) round-oval, borne on short, axUlary stalks, 

 and as large as a pepper-corn. — Sent from La. by Dr. Hale. Perhaps the locality 

 ia beyond our limits. 



2 M. vestita, a very delicate species, with stems and petioles as fine as threads, 

 with the quaternate leaflets and the very small sessile sporocarps clothed with 

 minute, silky, brown hairs, is sent from Iowa, near the Mississippi R. by Dr. 

 Couzens.; It probably grows in 111. Height of Ivs. 1 to 2'. 



2. ISOETES, L. Quill- WORT. (Gr. laog, equal, erog, year ; alike 

 all the year round?) Sporocarps oval, membranous, 1-colled, immersed 

 in the dilated base of the frond ; spores subglobous, slightly angular, 

 attached to numerous filiform receptacles, those in the outer fruits larger, 

 angular, triple or in 4s, apparently of a different nature. 



I. laoiistris L. Lvs. CEespitous, subulate, semiterete, dilated and imbricated at 

 base. — A curious aquatic, in water at or near the margin of ponds and rivers, N. 

 Eng. and Mid. States, often wholly submersed. Lvs. radical, numerous, tufted 

 simple, 2 to 10' long, somewhat spreading, containing numerous cells divided by 

 iMigitudinal and transverse partitions. Fr. whitish, rather large, in the excavated 

 base of the leaves which dilated portion is ordinarily as long as wide • in var. 

 EiPASiA, broader than long; in var. BsaELiiANNi, longer than broad. 



3. AZOL'LA, Lam. (Gr. &^u, to dry, dkkvpi, to kill ; quickly 



