The first and oldest of these varieties is generally called Scale or Imbricate armour.

Calyx 5-parted, valvate in the staminate flowers, imbricate in the pistillate.

Head small: base of the wings covered with conspicuous, lengthened, imbricate scales.

Scales on the back rounded, quincuncial, imbricate; those on the belly similar to those on the back and on the sides.

Head large, covered with small rather unequal not imbricate scales.

The tail round, tapering, with imbricate rhombic seales, with the keels forming longitudinal ridges.

In habit it is like that of the tea, but the buds are covered with imbricate scales.

Spikelets are narrowly lanceolate, closely appressed and imbricate, 1/6 inch long excluding the awn and very variable.

Sepals and petals colored alike, in three or more rows of three, imbricate.

Sporocarps sessile beneath the stem; small, floating, pinnately branched, with minute imbricate leaves.