INTRODUCTION. 15 



Monsieur Gadeceau tells us, in his admirable mono- 

 graph ' Le Lao de Grand-Lieu ' (Nantes, 1909), that 

 the fishermen frequenting that lake know all kinds of 

 Characese by the name of "Sart," but, unless they are 

 very unusually observant sportsmen, it is probable 

 that they include, under this epithet, at any rate some 

 other kinds of water-weed. 



The following reference to two kinds of 



First British « Horse-taile " in Johnson's edition of 

 record. 



Gerard's 'Herball,' p.lll5 (1633), repre- 

 sents apparently the first record of the occurrence of 

 Charophytes in this country : 



" 7. In some boggie places of this kingdome is found a i-are and 

 pretty Hippuris or Horsetaile, which grows up with many little 

 branches, some two or three inches high, putting forth at each joynt 

 many little leaves, clustering close about the stalke, and set after the 

 manner of other Horse-tailes : towards the top of the bi-anches the 

 joynts are very thicke ; the colour of the whole plant is gray, a little 

 inclining to green, very brittle, and as it were stony or gi-avelly like 

 Coralline, and will crash under your feet, as if it were frozen : and if 

 you chew it, you shall find it all stonie or gravelly. My friend, 

 Mr. Leonard Buckner, was the first that found this plant, and brought 

 it to me ; he had it three miles beyond Oxford, a, little on this side 

 Bvansham-fen-y, in a bog upon a common by the Beacon hill neere 

 Cumner-wood, in the end of August, 1632. Mr. Bowles hath since 

 found it growing upon a bog not far from Chisselhurst in Kent. I 

 question whether this bee not the Hippuris lacustris qusedam foliis 

 mansu arenosis of Gesner : but if Gesners be that which Bauhine in his 

 Prodromus, pag. 24, sets forth by the name of Eqnisetum nudum minus 

 variegatum, then I judge it not to be this of my description : for 

 Bauhines differs from this in that it is without leaves, and ofttimes 

 bigger : the stalks of his are hollow, these not so : this may be called 

 Hippuris Coralloides, Horse-taile Coralline; 



. "8. Towards the later end of the yeare, in divers ditches, as in 

 St. James his parke, in the ditches on the backe of Southwarke towards 

 St. George's fields, etc., you may find covered over with water a kinde 

 of stinking Horse-taile : it growes sometimes a yard long, with many 

 joints and branches, and each joint set with leaves, as in the other 

 Horse-tailes, but they are somewhat jagged or divided towards the tops. 

 I take this to be the Equisetum foetidtmi sub aqua repens, described in 

 the first place of Bauhinus his Prodromus : we may call it in English, 

 stinking water Horse-taile." 



