695 



The figures of this plant are for the most part characteristic, al- 

 though some of the older ones might have been more satisfactory. It 

 is so distinct in its appearance and characters that one can hardly fail 

 of recognizing it if drawn with even a moderate degree of accuracy. 

 For the same reason all authors appear to agree in its name, and we 

 thus escape the trouble of investigating a confused synonymy. 



The roots of the Wood Equisetum are fewer in number and some- 

 what smaller than those of the species I have described : they are 

 brown, tortuous, occasionally branched, and generally clothed with fi- 

 brillse : the rhizoma is horizontally extended, branched and striated; 

 in many places it is clothed with fibrillae like those of the roots : it is 

 throughout of a dark brown colour. 



The stems are of two kinds, fertile and barren : both, when mature, 

 are furnished with compound branches. The fertile stems rise from 

 the ground perfectly naked, but most of them soon exhibit incipient 

 branches just at the base of the upper sheaths; these quickly elon- 

 gate into compound branches, forming several whorls, as represented 

 on the next page. The number of whorls varies from two to 

 eight ; I have rarely met with the latter number, and never with more. 

 Long after the catkin has decayed, these whorls of branches continue 

 vigorous, and combine in giving a blunt or flat-topped appearance to 

 the entire frond. They are of a dull, sickly, green colour, succulent 

 and striated : the striaj are about twelve or fourteen in number, and 

 the ridges between them are armed with minute siliceous points, but 

 these are insufficient to communicate any roughness or harshness to 

 the plant. The sheaths are very long and loose, terminating superi- 

 orly in three or four large conical lobes, containing on an average three 

 striae in each ; the inferior portion of these sheaths is concolorous with 

 the stem, the superior or apical portion is of a bright russet brown 

 colour. 



The catkin is elongate, somewhat pointed, and of a pale brown co-- 

 lour; it stands on a slender stalk, of rather more than its own length. 

 The scales of the catkin are eighty and upwards in number. The 

 catkin is ripe in April. 



The barren stems make their appearance almost simultaneously with 

 the fertile ones, but are more slender, and the sheaths are much small- 

 er, although similarly formed and coloured. The whorls of branches are 

 from ten to twenty in number, and the branches composing each whorl 

 gradually decrease in number and length towards the ajiex, M'hicli is 

 extremely slender, so much so, that unable to bear its own weight, it 

 droops on one side, and is not readily to be distinguished from the 



