618 



short and stunted ; on the other hand, he says that the finest exam- 

 ples he has met with, were in the counties of Chester and Lancaster, 

 ^^ growing on the red marl^'' (Id. 588). Mr. Watson also relates some 

 strange tales about the Cheshire horses getting " bogged," in their 

 endeavours to graze on the plant ; and that he (Mr. Watson) has seen 

 a horse almost over head in mud, in a small pond (perhaps a mud- 

 pond) filled with the tall horse-tails. I do not wish to contradict Mr. 

 Watson, but merely to say that water or mud is not essential to the 

 luxuriant growth of Equisetum fluviatile. At Broad-bank, four miles 

 from Coin, in Lancashire, in a plot of ground which is appropriated 

 to the growth of potatoes, we have the plant growing much higher 

 than the fences. At Midge Hool, neai" Todmorden, we have it grow- 

 ing very fine, in a wood. And I think I shall be correct in saying 

 that the plant is not common in the ponds in Lancashire, as I have 

 been in the habit of visiting them for the last sixteen years, and never 

 met with it in any of them. In the Manchester Flora, it is said to 

 grow in "moist woods and hedge-banks, common." In the Yorkshire 

 Flora there are four stations for E. fluviatile,— two of them in woods, 

 and one of the others by a road-side. Francis observes that " the 

 name Jluviatile is not so applicable to this species as it would have 

 been to some of the others, as it is rarely found on the banks of rivers 

 or in ponds, nor do I remember ever having seen it growing in water." 

 Withering, Smith and Hooker, say the plant grows on the banks of 

 rivers, lakes, &c. Something might be said on the red marl, but as 

 ' The Phytologist ' is no medium for Geology, I will omit that altoge- 

 ther. How far Mr. Watson may be correct when he says that horses 

 will go almost over head in mud to get at the plant, I know not ; all 

 that I can say is, that so far as my own observations go, horses will 

 not eat the plant at all, if they can get anything else. I have never 

 met with the fronds injured by horses, though growing in fields where 

 they fi-equently feed. Lightfoot states, on the authority of Haller, 

 that the plant was eaten by the Romans ; he also tells us, on the au- 

 thority of Linnaeus, that horses refuse it. As Mr. Watson's is the first 

 account we have, by British writers, of E. fluviatile growing in water, 

 it would be well if he could give us a description of that part of the 

 stem which grows under water. — Samuel Gibson ; Hehden Bridge, 

 May 10, 1843. 



316. Note on Geranium nodosum. Mr. Watson still leaves 

 undecided the question as to whether a Geranium which he has in his 

 herbarium was gathered wild near Halifax, (Phytol. 588). In reply 

 to that question I would say, that if the plant be one which / sent to 



