WEEDS. 



lets crowded, lanceolate, acute; the upper ones confluent. 

 The fronds are annual, origmating from a perennial, creeping, 

 scaly root, and rise, according to the soil, to the height of 

 two to five feet. They are rigid and harsh, colour light green, 

 and spread in a handsome, partly horizontal posture, being 

 regularly compounded in an almost pectinate manner. The 

 fructifications are rough, tomentose, rufescent ; parallel lines 

 run along the margin of the pinnules, which are rolled back 

 very much, so as almost to cover the capsules when ripe. 



The " Braken," or common fern, is a hardy perennial plant, 

 tenacious of growth, and striking a long tap root into the 

 ground, beneath the reach of the plough, which shoots up 

 vigorously when the sun becomes powerful; it prevails largely 

 and strongly on some deep, dry, hazel, loamy soils. The roots 

 may be drawn after soaking rain, and the land must be very 

 deeply ploughed ; for, when the plant has been long estab- 

 hshed, it requires much pains and attention to get quit of it. 



22. The "Horsetail," or the "Equisetum" of botany, is 

 not unfrequently found as a weed on soft moist soils. It be- 

 longs to the class and order " Cryptogamia Alices" of Linneus, 

 and the natural order " Filices " of Jussieu. 



Generic character. — Fructifications disposed into a long 

 ovate, oblong spike, each orbiculate, gaping at the base, with 

 several valves connected by a flat shield-shaped top. 



The roots are perennial and creeping. They are leafless 

 herbs, with a hollow streaked stem, either simple or branched, 

 the branchlets usually disposed in whorls ; it is jointed, and 

 the joints are surrounded with a toothed sheath. 



The " Corn horse tail," or the Equisetum arvense," has 

 the fruit-bearing scape naked, the barren scape leafy. The 

 naked flowering stems appear early in the spring, and soon 

 decay ; they are the thickness of a large wheat straw, a hand's 

 breadth or more in height, upright, yellowish, with from two 

 to five joints, covered with membranous ribbed sheaths, divided 

 at the top into numerous segments or teeth. It grows in 

 corn fields of a damp nature, flowering in March, April, and 

 May. The country people call it "horse-pipe and snake- 

 pipe." The presence of it is supposed to indicate subter- 



