140 
Cryptogams or Flowerless Plants — Filices . 
3. OSMUNDEiE. —Sporanges with an incomplete transverse ring, opening across the apex. A small group, 
represented in Britain by the “ Flowering Fern” (Osmunda regalis). 
* VERNATION NOT CIRCINATE. 
4. OPHIOGLOSSE.E. —Sporanges destitute of a ring, opening in two valves, arranged in a simple or branched 
spike. A small group, represented by the Adder’s Tongue ( Ophioglossum ) and Moonwort (Botrychium) in Britain. 
USES, &c.—The Order is not of much economic importance. The cellular portion of the stem and rhizome 
affords in a few species a coarse food to savage tribes, and a few have a medicinal repute, as Male Shield Fern 
(Aspidium Filix-mccs), which is celebrated as an anthelmintic. 
The graceful form and delicately-divided fronds of nearly all the members of the family eminently fit them for 
ornamental cultivation, especially upon shady rockwork, in conservatories, and in parlour glazed Wardian cases. 
Natural Order 
BOUISETACETi. Tab. 104. 
Diagnosis. —Herbs with hollow jointed stems, simple or with slender 
whorled jointed branches. Fructification consisting of numerous closely- 
packed peltate scales, bearing capsules (sporanges) of one kind underneath, 
collected in a terminal spike. Outer coat of the spores splitting into elastic, 
attached, hygroscopic filaments (elaters); spores developing a prothallus as 
in Filices. 
Distribution. —A very small Natural Order, consisting of the solitary genus Horsetail 
(Eqidsetum), most numerous in the North Temperate zone, with but few Tropical representatives. 
A Tropical American species is said to attain a height of 20-30 feet. The remains of plants allied to 
the Horsetails abound in rocks of great geological age, associated with the impressions of Ferns. 
