99. EQUISETACEiE. 
515 
FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 
Class III. CRYPTOGAME^. 
Substance of the plant of cellular tissue or with a few- 
ducts. No woody fibre. No true flower with stamens 
and pistils. No distinct embryo, nor cotyledons. 
A. Plants with a few ducts amongst the cellular tissue. Pro- 
ducing spores which develop into a prothallus which bears 
antheridia and archegonia.' 
Order XCIX. EQCISETACE.E. 
Leafless branched plants with a striate hollow stem ; each 
joint ending in a sheath which conceals the joining and 
encloses the base of the next joint. Sporules surrounded by 
elastic clavate filaments and enclosed in capsules arising from 
the peltate scales of terminal cones or spikes. — Rhizome 
creeping. Branches whorled. Cuticle abounding in silex. 
Only one genus. 
1. Equise'tuji Linn. Horse-tail. 
* Fertile stems mostly unbranched and sucadent : barren sterm 
with solid whorled branches, appea/ring later. 
1. E. arven'se (L.) : sterile st. with 6 — 19 furrows slightly 
rough, branches rough with 3 or 4 simple angles, teeth of sheaths 
Icmg acute l-rihbed at the tip, fertile st. simple with few lax 
distant sheaths.— iT. B. 2020. .S'. 1. H. F. 60. N. 77.— 
Sterile st. many, procumbent or ascending ; with many whorls 
of roughish solid usually simple branches with deep furrows 
1 (tl.) refers to .Veicman's BritUh, Ftmi, ed. 2 (1S44); (S.) X.a'SowtTby$ Ftrns 
and Fen allies; (B. F.) to Hooker's British ferns. Moore's Handbook of British 
Ferns, ed. 3, may be consulted with mach advantage, and Milde in Nov. Act. Soc. 
Nat. Cur. vol. xxiii. 
