699 



slightly striated when living, more evidently so when dried ; they are 

 of a pale whitish-green colour : the sheaths are very large and loose, 

 and nearly white, in some specimens almost of an ivory whiteness, 

 with a brown ring at the base of the teeth, which are from fifteen to 

 twenty in number, long, almost seliform, very slightly flexuous, pale 

 browTi, and furnished with dilated, membranous, almost transparent, 

 whitish edges. The catkin is terminal, oval, and of a very pale brown 

 colour ; at first it appears sessile, but when mature its footstalk is 

 very obvious : the scales are forty or fifty in number ; in figure they 

 are somewhat hexagonal, and have a conspicuous central depression, 

 surrounded by six or seven nearly circular and slightly convex de- 

 partments. The catkin is ripe in April. 



When the stem bears both fructification and branches, a character 

 overlooked by British botanists in their descriptions, but one of com- 

 mon though not constant occurrence, the branches are disposed in 

 whorls four to six in number, the first being placed at the base of the 

 uppermost sheath, and the others following in succession : the sheaths 

 are smaller than in those stems which are fertile only, and larger than 

 in the barren stems. I am indebted to Mr. Cameron, of the Birming- 

 ham Botanic Garden, for specimeus in this state, gathered while the 

 catkin was still in perfection. 



The barren differs from the exclusively fertile stem in having the 

 sheaths much smaller and more distant ; the teeth also are shorter, 

 fewer in number, and less pointed. The barren stem is usually divi- 

 ded into about twenty joints, of which the four or five lower ones are 

 branchless, but each of the others is furnished with a whorl of branches 

 varying in number from ten to sixteen in each whorl. These branches 

 at first are somewhat recurved and drooping, as in E. sylvaticum, but 

 they afterwards become spreading and slightly ascending ; they are 

 simple, and composed of eight or ten joints, of which the basal one 

 is the shortest, being a mere sheath ; the second is sinuous : they are 

 usually triangular, and the loose sheath which accompanies each joint 

 terminates in three obtuse teeth, which have the extreme tips brown. 

 The ridges of the stem and branches are beset with minute flinty par- 

 ticles, which give the plant a rougher feel than the preceding. 



Sir W. J. Hooker observes — " Its nearest affinity is doubtless with 

 E. arvense, but it is abundantly distinct. Its colour is greener and 

 less glaucous ; its stem rougher, with closely-set raised points ; its an- 

 gles and branches much more numerous ; and the whole barren fi-ond 

 is singularly blunt in its outline or circumscription at the extremity, 

 by which it may be at once known from E. arvense. The sheaths, 



