IS98.] 



Prakgkr. — Fy uctificatio7i of Ferns, dfc. 



117 



hyemale, the Dutch Rush, has dark green " evergreen " stems, 

 full of particles of silica or flint. It is ver}^ constant in the 

 absence of branching of its tall stems, and sports are exceed- 

 ingly rare. Dr. Boswell, in Ejiglish Botany, mentions but a 

 single aberrant specimen, which bore a branch near the apex 



Jrjgr JO. — Ecjuisetiim hyemale. Rocky River, Mourne Mountains, 



R. U. R, 1890. 



of the stem. In 1890 I found several specimens on a river 

 bank in the Mourne Mountains (see fig. 10), of which the 

 upper part of the stem had been nipped off by sheep, and in 

 consequence a fruit-cone which was practically sessile had 

 been produced from each of the several nodes below the point 

 of injury, on each side of the stem alternately. In most of 

 the Horsetails, as we have seen, the branches, if produced at 

 all, are in whorls. But in the species to which E. hyemale is 

 allied — E. trachydori and E. variegatum — the branching is 

 quite irregular ; so that in the irregularly-borne fruit-cones 

 of my abnormal stem of E. hyemale, the plant showed its 

 affinity to its allies. 



E. variegatum is the most protean of all our Horsetails in 

 the matter of branching and fruit-bearing. It is sometimes 



A 3 



