723 



pactness of soil is also unfavorable ; a more extensive record of obser- 

 vation is still to be desired. 



It is hinted by Haller that the Roman people ate this plant, but the 

 passage is so brief as to throw little light on the subject.* 



Considerable difference of opinion appears to prevail on the subject 

 of its being eaten by animals. Mr. Watson, in one of the passages 

 above referred to, states that horses graze on it, (Phytol. 588). Mr. 

 Gibson says that horses will not eat the plant at all, if they can get 

 anything else, (Id. 618). On the occasion of my first visit to the Nor- 

 wood station, there were three half-starved cadger's horses upon the 

 waste ground where the Equisetum is growing ; they devoured eager- 

 ly the coarse sour herbage growing about the pond, and almost every 

 green blade they could find ; indeed it seemed as though they seldom 

 had an opportunity of making a meal, but they pertinaciously refused 

 to touch the Equisetum. 



The representations of this plant generally fail to give a correct idea 

 of its figure, from the circumstance that the summit only of the stem 

 is given ; in other respects those in ' English Botany ,'t Bolton's Fili- 

 ces'l and Dietrich's 'Cryptogamia of Germany ,'§ are tolerably correct. 



It has already been shown that the nomenclature of this species is 

 somewhat confused, but I trust that botanists generally will agree with 

 me in restoring the earliest (binominal) name. There is little doubt 

 of its being the Equisetum maj us of Rayll and of Gerarde,1[ but not 

 the E. arvense var. |3. of Hudson,** the Equisetum Telmateia of Ehr- 

 hartjtt the Equisetum eburneum of Iloth,:l:t who himself acknowledges 

 it to be Ehrhart's E. Telmateia ; and, finally, the Equisetum fluviatile 

 of Smith, Hooker, and Babington, and of many continental botanists. 

 It also appears clear that it was totally unknown to Linneus, and, con- 

 sequently, neither named nor alluded to in any of his works. The 

 names given by Ray, Gerarde, and other authors antecedent to Lin- 

 neus, are dropped by universal consent : that the plant in question is 

 a variety of E. arvense will not now be maintained; so that we una- 

 voidably arrive at Ehrhart's name of Telmateia, published fifty-five 

 years ago. Ehrhart's names were never, 1 believe, intended by their 

 author as specific names, and, moreover, have been rejected as fanci- 

 ful by many of our later botanists ; but the latter objection scarcely 



* Hoc fuerit Equisetum quod a plebe Romana in cibum lecipitur. — Hall. Hist, 

 iii. l,No. 1675. 



t Eng. Bot. 2022. + Bolt. Fil. tab. 36 and 37. § Deut. Krypt. Gew. pi. 5. 



II Ray, Syn. 130. U Ger. Em. 11 13. ** As suggested by Mr. Watson. 



tt Eluli. Bcilrage, ii. 159. +|: Roth, Catal. i. 129. 



3q 



