Order 1. =Isoëtaceæ (Quill-worts).= The only known genus, _Isoëtes_ (Quill-wort), has an extremely short, tuberous, _unbranched_ stem with very short internodes (Fig. 237). The STEM is remarkable as being the only one among the Vascular Cryptogams which increases in thickness (see page 202). The meristematic cells are situated round the axial cylinder, and form, especially, parenchymatous tissue in two or three directions, giving rise to 2–3 grooves in which the dichotomously-branched ROOTS are produced. The LEAVES are arranged spirally in a close rosette. They are awl-shaped and have at the base a semi-amplexicaul sheath, with a groove (_fovea_), in which a sporangium is situated (Fig. 238). The ligule is a foliar outgrowth from the upper edge of the groove.--The MACROSPORANGIA (each with a number of macrospores), are situated on the outer leaves, the MICROSPORANGIA (Fig. 238), on the inner ones. Between each cycle of fertile leaves there are a number of imperfect or barren ones as in the case of the female plant of _Cycas_. The spores are liberated by the decay of the sporangium. The two kinds of sporangia develope at the commencement in the same way. The archesporium is, at first, a hypodermal layer of cells which grow out in the direction perpendicular to the surface of the leaf, and divide by a number of walls parallel to this direction, forming a sporogenous mass of cells. Some of the cell-rows of this sporogenous mass lose their rich protoplasmic contents, and are arrested in their growth; thus incomplete divisional walls of sterile cells, “_trabeculæ_” arise in the sporangium, dividing it into a number of compartments one above the other (Fig. 238 _t_). (The trabeculæ, according to Goebel, play the same part as the nutritive cells of the sporangium of _Riella_; the tapetal cells, as in the Ferns, are in a great measure dissolved at a later period.) The sporogenous cell-rows, in the microsporangia, give rise to a large number of spore-mother-cells, but in the macrosporangia only one spore-mother-cell, with tapetum, is developed from each fertile archesporial cell. The two native species, and several others, are aquatic plants, the remaining species are land plants, or are amphibious. About 50 species. In temperate and tropical regions.--FOSSIL species in the Tertiary period.