SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 89 



describe without the use of botanic terms, that we 

 must leave them, to glance at the fern-like Equi- 

 setum, or horsetail of our coast. It is classed with 

 the ferns, but none but a botanist would discover 

 its resemblance to that interesting tribe of plants. 

 It has not a bright green leaf, densely studded, 

 like them ; with masses of brown fructification, 

 which when seen under a microscope seem groups 

 of crystals and other gems ; but it has rigid hollow 

 stems, without branches or leaves, and with black 

 sheaths at intervals around it. The variegated 

 horsetail (Equisetum variegatum) has been found 

 on some sandy shores of England and Ireland, and 

 also on the sands of Barry in Angusshire. It is 

 the smallest of our native Equisetums, its stem 

 being rarely more than eight inches high. Every 

 one knows the tall stems of some of these plants, 

 which grow on the marshy or boggy places of our 

 lands, with their long whorls of rigid furrowed 

 branchlets. They may well be so hard as to have 

 been used so much in polishing ivory and wood 

 and metals, for they have a framework of flint. 

 If some species of the horsetail be carefully burnt, 

 some remains will be left unconsumed by the fire, 

 and if these are held up to the light, numerous 

 little points will be seen spirally arranged, which 

 are portions of pure flint, and it is the saw-like 

 flinty edge which renders the plant so useful a 

 polisher. Its old name was pewter-wort, for good 

 housewives in the olden times used it in brighten- 

 ing the ware, on which once the good roast beef 

 of Old England disdained not to rest. 



The Equisetums are an interesting tribe to the 

 geologist, for they appear to have formed a very 



