DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES 
343 
surface several sessile, one-celled, pouch-like capsules (spo- 
rangia), one corresponding with each side of the receptacle, 
and each opening towards the centre. Spores uniform, each 
supplied with four hygrometric filaments known as elaters 
(fig. d). On development the spores produce prothallia, on 
the under surface of which the sexual organs are to be found. 
220. Equisetum ramosissimum Desf. 
Plate 174. Nat. size, b, c Receptacles, magnified, d Spore and 
elaters, magnified, e Sheath, magnified. 
Rhizome creeping, slender. Stem one to six feet long, 
hollow, often simple and only one line diameter when small; 
when large varying from three to four lines diameter, ir- 
regularly branched, or sometimes irregularly whorled, with 
branches again sometimes branched, the terminal branch 
generally fertile, and often many other branches fertile, 
especially if the terminal one has been destroyed. Spikes 
one-half to one inch long, one and a half to three lines 
thick, oblong, pointed. Barren stems not different from the 
others. Sheaths two to four lines long, including the black 
pointed teeth, which vary in size and in number, as also do 
the ribs from five to twenty, according to the size of the stem. 
Large and small specimens look very different, and Kuhn 
includes the following varieties and localities from South 
Africa, from Milde’s monograph, which I have been unable 
to see. 
Var. capense Milde = if. capense. Bory MS., Prom. Bon. Spei (Bory, 
Drege, Zeyher). 
Var. Burchellii Milde = is. Burchellii Vaucher. Prom. Bon. Spei 
(Burchell Cat. 2464). 
Var. Dregeanum Milde = E. Thunbergii Wickstr. = E. giganteum. 
Thbg, Prod. 17 1. 
Prom. Bon. Spei (Thunberg, Drege). 
Var. arcuatum Milde. 
Prom. Bon. Spei, near Gekau (Drege). 
Var . flagelliferum Milde = E. incanum Webb and Berth. 
Tugela River, Natal (Gueinzius). 
