As seen in transverse section through a young stem near the apex, the axis consists of a mass of parenchyma, in which may be distinguished a central larger-celled tissue, surrounded by a ring of smaller-celled groups marking the position of a circle of embryonic vascular strands. In each young vascular strand, a few of the cells next the pith may be seen to have thicker walls and to be provided with a ring-like internal thickening; these have passed over into the condition of annular tracheids and represent the _protoxylem_ elements. At a later stage, a transverse section through the stem shows a central hollow pith, formed by the tearing apart and subsequent disappearance of the medullary parenchymatous cells, which were unable to keep pace with the growth in thickness of the stem. The pith cavity is bridged across at each node by a multi-layered plate of parenchyma, which forms the so-called nodal _diaphragm_. The inner edge of each vascular strand is now found to be occupied by a small irregularly circular canal (fig. 52, C, c, and D, c) in which may be seen some of the rings of protoxylem tracheids (D, a) which have been torn apart and almost completely destroyed. These canals, known as _carinal canals_, have arisen by the tearing and disruption of the thin-walled cells in the immediate neighbourhood of the protoxylem. Each carinal canal is bounded by a layer of elongated parenchymatous cells which form part of the xylem of the vascular bundle, and is succeeded internally by the general ground-tissue of the stem. The xylem parenchyma next a carinal canal is succeeded externally by phloem tissue, consisting of short protoplasmic cells and longer elements, without nuclei and poor in contents; the latter may be regarded as sieve-tubes. On either side of the phloem, the xylem occurs in two separate bands or groups of annular and reticulately thickened tracheids. In some species, _e.g._ _Equisetum xylochaetum_ Metten.[488] and _E. giganteum_[489] L. a native of South America, the xylem has the form of two bands composed of fairly numerous tracheids, but in most species the xylem tracheids occur in small groups, as shown in the figure of _E. maximum_ (fig. 52, D). In the shape of the vascular bundle, and in the formation of the carinal canal, there is a distinct resemblance between the vascular bundles of _Equisetum_ and those of a monocotyledonous stem. These collateral stem-bundles of xylem and phloem traverse each internode as distinct strands, and at the nodes each strand forks into two branches (fig. 54, A), which anastomose with the alternating bundles passing into the stem from the leaf-sheath. Thus the vascular strands of each internode alternate in position with those of the next internode.