150 PERNS OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



ber of vessels that are made of silver, and in maner no 

 less desired amongst the great Estates, vi'hose workmen 

 are nothing so skilful in that trade as ours ;" and the 

 prices which he gives of the various articles prove their 

 great costliness. The Shave-grasses served for cleaning 

 either kind of ware, and this Corn Horsetail is stiU 

 used by the dairy-maids in Yorkshire for cleansing 

 wooden milk-pails ; while the larger and less frequent 

 plant, the Rough Horsetail, has long been known to 

 our polishers of marble and other similar substances, and, 

 under the name of Dutch Rush, has been imported in 

 large quantities from Holland for their use. 



2. JE. hyemdle (Rough Horsetail, Shave-grass, Dutch 

 Rush). — Stem erect, rough, strongly marked with lines; 

 sheaths short, pressed close to the stem ; teeth falling off. 

 This species has not, like the last, two distinct kinds of 

 frond, those which bear the catkins being exactly, in all 

 other respects, like those which are barren. It has 

 none of the whorled tail-like branches around the main 

 stem, though now and then a single branch is produced 

 from the base of one of its sheaths. Its roots are strong 

 and black, and its creeping underground stem extends to 

 a great distance, and is jointed and branched by the 

 whorled fibrous roots. The main stem of the frond is 

 usually erect, two or three feet high, hoUow, tapering 

 towards the summit, and marked with from fourteen to 

 twenty ridges. These ridges render the stem so rough 

 to the touch that they are hke a file, and their crystals of 

 flint display, under the microscope, the most exquisitely 

 beautiful arrangement. They abound both in the inner 

 and outer cuticle, and form a complete framework 



