4 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
co-operation in their studies of botany and zoology. 
In botany sspecially a large amount of material for 
laboratory work is annually furnished. A finely mounted 
collection of the plants of the vicinity has recently been 
presented to the Joliet Township High School and a 
duplicate collection will be received by the Field Colum- 
bian Museum of Chicago. Considered from the stand- 
point of either beauty or utilitj^ there are few parks that 
compare with The Forest of Arden. 
Joliet, 111. 
THE HORSETAILS AND CLUB-MOSSES OF 
WELLINGTON COUNTY, ONTARIO. 
BY A. B. KLUGH. 
THE most ubiquitous member of either of these two 
families is certainly the field horsetail {Equisetum 
arvense). It grows in thickets, it flourishes in swamps 
and it fairly revels in a sand\^ field. The fertile stems 
appear very early and the spores are scattered about 
May 6th. At this time the sterile shoots are only a few 
inches high and but little branched ; by the end of May 
they have assumed the characteristic appearance which 
jgives them, and through them the family, the name of 
Horsetail." 
Another species of the non-evergreen " section of 
the horsetail family (Equisetacese) also puts in an early 
appearance. This is the wood horsetail {Equisetum 
sylvaticum) the rarest and by far the most beautiful of 
the family. It only grows in one damp thicket in the 
county as far as known. The spores are scattered 
toward the middle of May, after which the fertile stems 
branch out as much as the sterile ones. 
Late in May the shoots of the swamp horsetail 
{Equisetum Buviatile) came up in the bogs and shallow 
water of lakes and ponds, and about June 9 the spores 
are shed. At this time both fertile and sterile stems are 
but little branched, and many ot the sterile and most of 
