Page 622 : EPIGYNOUS — EQUISETALES
Individual articles:
cells and outside exposure. Since these living cells must effect exchanges with the outer world, the epidermis is not merely a protective layer, but must be organized in such a way that it may facilitate these exchanges. Its duties, therefore, are numerous. The epidermis is able to produce a variety of structures, conspicuous among which are hairs of many kinds. Wherever the epidermis covers green tissue it also organizes very numerous stomata, commonly known as breathing pores or automatic gateways, through which various gases pass in and out in connection with the work of the green cells. See figure under Stomata.
Epig′ynous (ē̇-pĭj′ ĭ-nŭs) Flowers, those in which the sepals, petals and stamens seem to arise from the top of the ovary. In such cases the ovary is often said to be inferior, that is, it is to be seen below the flower, as in the common honeysuckle. The contrasting term is hypogynous. Epigynous flowers are regarded as of higher rank than those that are hypogynous, and in the highest family, the Compositæ, the flowers are all epigynous. The noun form is epigyny. See Flower.
Epiphytes (ĕp′ ĭ-fīts), commonly called air-plants, since they obtain all their food supplies from the air, having no connection with the soil or with water. They occur in great numbers in the tropics, especially the American tropics, and are found perching in great numbers upon other plants, the trees sometimes being almost covered with them. Many ferns have this habit, but it has been most cultivated by orchids and bromelias. The epiphytic orchids, with their dangling roots and odd-looking but brilliant flowers, are favorite greenhouse-plants. One of the common epiphytes of the United States is the so-called long moss or Spanish moss, which hangs in gray masses among the trees of the gulf states. It is not a moss, but a flowering plant, one of the bromelias.
Epirus (''ē̇-pī′ rŭs), meaning mainland, is the old name of a part of Greece lying between Illyria and the Ambracian Gulf and between the Ionian Sea and the mountain chain of Pindus. It is a mountainous region, heavily wooded and growing little wheat, though noted for its cattle and horses and for its breed of Molossian shepherd-dogs. Its best known river is the Acheron; its chief towns Dodona and Ambracia. In early times, as to-day, its people were only half Greeks, the Greek colonies being confined to the coast and southern portion. Of the Molossian kings of Epirus, the most famous was Pyrrhus, who long waged successful war against the Romans. On the conquest of Macedonia by the Romans (168 B. C.) the most revengeful measures were put in force against the Epirotes, who had helped Perseus, the Macedonian king. Æmilius Paulus, the Roman general, plundered and razed to the ground seventy towns of Epirus, and sold into slavery 150,000 of the people. From that time Epirus shared the good or bad fortunes of the Roman and Byzantine empires until 1204. Then small princes ruled the country until the 15th century, when it was at last conquered by the Turks. Epirus, peopled largely since the 14th century by the Albanians, formed latterly a part of the Turkish province of Janina. Under pressure from the great powers, Turkey ceded the strip of land east of the River Art a to Greece in 1881.
Ep′ping Forest, where kings hunted in the olden days, once covered all of Essex (England) , and extended almost to London. Inclosures slowly curtailed it from 60,000 acres to 4,000 in 1871, when London undertook to preserve what was left and to recover the later inclosures. In 1882, at a cost of $2,000,000, 5,600 acres of Epping Forest were opened to the public. Easily reached from London, its nine square miles of almost unbroken woodland, which at High Beech or Queen Victoria’s wood, rises 759 feet above sea-level, form one of the largest and most beautiful pleasure-grounds in Europe. See E. N. Buxton’s Epping Forest.
Ep′som, a small town market of Surrey, England, fifteen miles southwest of London. The springs which made Epsom so fashionable a resort in the latter half of the 17th century, gave name to the Epsom salt, formerly made from them. The church, rebuilt in 1824, contains monuments by Flaxman and Chantrey. On Banstead Downs, one and a half miles south of the town, the most famous horse-races of the world are held yearly on Derby day. The grand stand was built in 1829–30 at a cost of $100,000, and seats 7,500 spectators. Population, 10,915.
E′quinox, the time when the sun is in the plane of the earth’s equator. This occurs twice a year, once on March 20th, which is called the vernal equinox, and again on Sept. 22d, which is called the autumnal equinox. The name is derived from the fact that the length of the night then exactly equals the length of the day, since the parallel rays of light from the sun, on these dates, fall upon the earth perpendicular to the axis of the earth. The sun then appears to be on the equator, and hence the equinoxes are popularly spoken of as the dates on which “the sun crosses the equator.”
Equisetales (ĕk′wĭ-sē̇-tā′lēz), one of the three great plant-groups which make up pteridophytes, commonly known as horsetails or scouring rushes. In early geological times the group was of great importance, and was represented by a great display of forest-forms. At present it contains but a single genus (Equisetum), represented by about twenty-five species. The equisetums have a very characteristic body. The stem is slender and jointed, and the joints sepa-
