164 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Subspecies II.— Equisetum Moorei. Newm. 



Plate 1895. 



Babenh. Crypt. Vase. Europ. Exsicc. No. 501. 



Newman, Phytol. 1854, p. 19. 



E. hyemale, var. Moorei. Hook. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 601. Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. 



ed. vii. p. 440. Hooh.fil. Stud. Fl. ed. ii. p. 502. 

 E. hyemale, var. Schleicheri. Milde, Fil. Europ. p. 244. 

 E. paleaceum, " Schleicher, e p. ;" e p. Milde, I.e. 

 E. trachyodon, Babenh. I.e. No. 50. Non A. Braun. 



Stems all similar, sub-evergreen, usually in tufts of 3 or 4 together 

 from each node, or extremity of branch of the rootstock, rather 

 slender, with a central hollow of about half its diameter, with 

 8 to 15 ("to 23," Milde) rather shallow furrows, separated by sub- 

 obtuse ridges, which are not furrowed on the back, and are rough 

 with smull prominent tubercles arranged in one stripe on each ridge, 

 dull dark green. Sheaths cylindrical-funnel-shaped, a little widened 

 upwards, pale green, at first concolorous, then with a black band at 

 the apex . and afterwards another at the base, ultimately white with 

 a black band at the base and a narrower one at the apex ; the lowest 

 ones permanently black ; each of the portions of the sheath which 

 corresponds to one of the teeth with a narrow shallow furrow down 

 the centre, and another similar furrow on each side between the 

 central furrow and the great furrow which extends (between the teeth) 

 from the apex to the base of the sheath ; teeth 8 to 16, triangular, 

 acuminated into long setaceous-subulate straight or slightly flexuous 

 points, which are wholly scarious, pitchy-black with narrow paler 

 margins and persist until the stems are full grown ; but in the 

 succeeding winter or spring many of them fall off and leave the 

 sheaths truncate and crenate, the crenatures corresponding to the 

 bases of the teeth. Branches absent, or very rarely produced, solitary 

 or two at a node, resembling the stem in miniature, with the first 

 internode much shorter than the stem-sheath below which it is pro- 

 duced ; sheath enclosing the first internode of the branch pitchy- 

 black, shining, oblique ; sheaths at the apex of the first and succeed- 

 ing internodes terminated by subulate persistent teeth. Spike oblong- 

 ovoid, acuminated and shortly mucronate, pitchy-black, its base 

 embraced by the teeth of the uppermost stem-sheath. 



On wet rocky banks and on open sandhills, very rare. " Sand- 

 hills north of Courtown, County Wexford, and sandhills near 

 Arkwell, and thence northwards in many places along the coast 



