HORSETAILS 173 
acquainted with the value of its long and matted roots in restraining the 
_ wasting effects of the ocean, which would soon undermine their dykes, were 
it not for the Hquisétum hyemdle which is planted upon them.” Either this, 
or some other species, was also highly commended for medicinal virtues, and 
the expressed juice put into the nostrils, and applied at the same time on 
the neck, was said to stop the bleeding of the nose. The fresh juice is also 
used externally as a remedy for wounds. There is a var. mooret with annual 
stems, the sheaths loose and their teeth blunt with white tips; this variety 
has been reported from Wicklow. 
3. Water Horsetail, or Smooth Naked Horsetail (£. limdésum). 
—Stem erect, smooth, naked, or branched ; sheaths shut, closely pressed to 
the stem; teeth numerous. Many lovers of stream-sides, of the music of 
rippling waters, and the beauty of wild flowers, have seen this plant fringing 
the stream, and mingling with its forget-me-nots, willow herbs, and golden 
flag flowers. It is not infrequent, and is found occasionally in running 
streams, but is more often to be seen in pools and ditches, its stems standing 
up in the water or around it, sometimes a yard high. The stem of the 
Smooth Horsetail is marked with from ten to thirty distinct ribs, but they 
are not so raised as to render it harsh to the touch, and their flinty coat is 
thinner, and formed of more delicate particles than that of some other 
species. Some of the stems are quite without branches ; others have, about 
the middle, irregular whorls of branches; sometimes there is about half a 
whorl here and there ; in other cases there is a single branch; so that the 
plant exhibits the most irregular and scattered mode of branching ; but the 
branches are never long and spreading like those of the Corn Horsetail, nor 
are they ever rough. The presence of the catkin on the fertile stem forms 
the only difference between it and the barren one. ‘This is terminal on the 
main stem, or more frequently on some of the uppermost branches, and it 
is bluntly egg-shaped. The scales, which are more than a hundred in 
number, are black, and the capsules are pale coloured. The numerously- 
toothed sheaths are very short. 
This plant is so much less flinty in its nature than either of the other 
species, that it is better fitted for fodder for cattle in this country, though it 
does not seem to be relished by them while in a green state ; but Linnzus 
says, that in Sweden it is cut up for their food, and that the reindeer feed 
on it when dried, though they will not eat common hay. Mr. Knapp, who, 
in his “ Journal of a Naturalist,” remarks that it is a favourite food for the 
common water-rat, adds: “A large stagnant piece of water in an inland 
county, with which I was intimately acquainted, and which I very frequently 
visited for many years of my life, was one summer suddenly infested with an 
astonishing number of the short-tailed water-rat, none of which had pre- 
viously existed there. Its vegetation was the common products of such 
places, excepting that the larger portion of it was densely covered with its 
usual crop, the Smooth Horsetail. This constituted the food of these crea- 
tures, and the noise made by their champing it we could distinctly hear in the 
evening at many yards’ distance.” 
4. Marsh Horsetail (Z. palistre).—Stem erect, with numerous 
branches, rough ; sheaths long and loose ; teeth long andfew. ‘This is a very 
