1. A. macrospérma, Michx. (Large Cane.) ([Pl. 11], fig. 1, 2.) Culms arborescent, 10–40° high and ½–3´ thick at base, rigid, simple the first year, branching the second, afterwards at indefinite periods fruiting, and soon after decaying; leaves lanceolate (1–2´ wide), smoothish or pubescent, the sheath ciliate on one margin, stoutly fimbriate each side of the base of the leaf; panicle lateral, composed of few simple racemes; spikelets 1–3´ long, purplish or pale, erect; flowering glume lanceolate, acute or acuminate, glabrous or pubescent, fringed (5–12´´ long).—River-banks, S. Va.(?), Ky., and southward, forming cane-brakes. April.
Var. suffruticòsa, Munro. (Switch Cane. Small Cane.) Lower and more slender (2–10° high), often growing in water; leaves 4´´–1´ broad; spikelets solitary or in a simple raceme at the summit of the branches, or frequently on leafless radical culms. (A. tecta, Muhl.)—Swamps and moist soil, Md., S. Ind. to S. E. Mo., and southward. Sometimes fruiting several years in succession.
SERIES II.
CRYPTOGAMOUS or FLOWERLESS PLANTS.
Vegetables destitute of proper flowers (i.e. having no stamens nor pistils), and producing instead of seeds minute one-celled germinating bodies called spores, in which there is no embryo or rudimentary plantlet.
Class III. ACROGENS.
Cryptogamous plants with a distinct axis or stem, growing from the apex, and commonly not with later increase in diameter, usually furnished with distinct leaves; reproduction by antheridia and archegonia, sometimes also by gemmation.
Subclass I. VASCULAR ACROGENS, or PTERIDOPHYTES.[1]
[Footnote 1: The orders of this Subclass have been elaborated anew for this edition by Prof. Daniel C. Eaton of Yale University.]
Stems containing woody fibre and vessels (especially scalariform or spiral ducts). Antheridia or archegonia, or both, formed on a minute prothallus which is developed from the spore on germination, the archegonium containing a nucleus, which after fertilization becomes an oöspore and at length grows into the conspicuous spore-bearing plant.
Order 130. EQUISETÀCEÆ. (Horsetail Family.)