GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 21 
the same perennial, creeping, jointed, and branching rootstocks, 
spring the green, plume-like, sterile stems known as Horse- 
tails (Fig. 3). These are eight inches to more than a foot 
tall, also hollow and jointed, but having whorls of simple rough 
branches issuing from the base of each sheath; the branches are 
usually four-angled, but sometimes have only three sides, and are 
jointed but not hollow. These green Horsetails are the food-as- 
similating, starch-making parts of the plant and keep busy all 
summer, storing the creeping rootstocks with nutriment for the 
next year’s fruiting stems. 
The Horsetail is poisonous most dangerously, sometimes 
fatally, so to horses, and in a much less degree to sheep, causing in 
the flocks merely a thin, unthrifty appearance and lack of good 
condition. Strangely enough, neat cattle seem to be able to digest 
the weed without injury. The state of Vermont, where horse- 
raising is so great an industry, credits to this plant a loss of some 
thousands of dollars annually. 
Means of control 
Drain, fertilize, and cultivate the ground. The plant thrives 
best in sandy or gravelly soil that is moist during the early part of 
the season, or where the soil water approaches near the surface. 
Drainage, and two or three seasons of good, thorough tillage, will 
drive it out; for, though the rootstocks are deeper in the ground 
than ordinary cultivation penetrates, yet they will starve and die if 
kept deprived of the green, food-assimilating, sterile stems. Plants 
of waste places should receive attention, to the destruction of 
both fertile and sterile shoots, as the wind-carried spores may 
start new infestations. 
VIRGINIA BEARD-GRASS 
Andropogon virginicus, L. 
Other English names: Broom Sedge. Sedge-grass. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: July to September. 
Seed-time: Late August to October. : 
Range: Massachusetts to Illinois and southward to Florida and 
Texas. Most abundant and troublesome in the South. 
Habitat: Meadows, pastures; grain, corn, and cotton fields. 
