THE FERN ALLIES. 
Though not having a very close botanical relationship 
with ferns, except in being like them acrogens, the 
Club-mosses, Quill-worts, Pepper-worts, and Horse-tails, 
are generally associated with them by cultivators. 
The Club-mosses are called LYCOPODIACEJE, and con- 
sist of leafy-stemmed moss-like plants with simple im- 
bricated leaves, bearing fructification in their axils, either 
iu the form of one-celled spore-cases called antheridia, 
containing numerous pulverous spores, or of 3-4 
valved spore-cases, called oophoridia, containing large 
granular spores. This group includes the genera Selagi- 
nella, and Lycopodium. 
The Pepper- worts MARSILEACE^E are stemless 
tufted, or creeping aquatic plants, bearing their fructifica- 
tion either enclosed within the swollen base of the leaves, 
or in globular sessile spore-cases, with the leaves at inter- 
vals along the rhizome. In both forms the spores are 
of two dissimilar kinds. The genera Isoetes and Pilu- 
laria belong to this group. 
The Horse-tails, called EQUISETACE^E, comprise the 
genus Eguisetum, and consist of leafless branched plant* 
having listular jointed stems, with sheathing articulations, 
their fructification consisting of spore-cases attached to 
peltate scales, collected into terminal cones. 
SELAGINELLA, Spring. 
GEN*. CHAR. Fructification consisting of one-celled 
antheridia and 3-4 celled oophoridia. 
