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in the anther idia and the number of spores, accord with the geographical! 
distribution of the species, which may accordingly be separated into two 
genera: but this is at present more than doubtful.” Berkeley. The late Dr. 
Buchanan Hamilton found this plant to the Eastward of Bengal, and Dr. 
Boyle in Behar. When grown in Colombo it spreads so rapidly that a 
marked difference can be observed in the surface it covers in the course of 
one day. 
EQUlSfcTACPiE. 
By a singular omission the following species of this remarkable family of 
plants tbo’ found in Ceylon by Moon, between 1817 and 1824, in Uva, and 
given in his Catalogue, with its native name, was omitted in the enumera- 
tion of Ceylon plants by Dr. Tbwaites. The following notes on the family 
and genus are taken from the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, and Moore’s British 
Ferns, and their allies The family consists of only one genus Equisetum, 
compounded from equu-s, a horse and seta, a hair or bristle ; whence comes 
the English name of Horstail, — a not inapt comparison with the barren stems 
of the species The Equise'acece of former ages were far more important as 
regards size. 
This race of plants have an aspect altogether different from that of 
the foregoing groups ; and indeed they have no very obvious connection with any 
existing order of plants. In their mode of growth they have a certain re- 
semblance to the Ephedras and Oasuarims, but this resemblance is confined 
to their general aspect. With ferns and club-mosses they have little in 
common. Their most direct r lationship is with the aquatic group Chara. 
The Horsetails are distinguished from other plants by the following charac- 
teristics. They are leafless, branching, with hollow jointed stems, separable 
at certain joints, which occur at intervals where they are solid, and sur- 
rounded by membraneous toothed shea hs ; each length, in fact, terminates 
above in one of these sheaths into which the base of the next, length fits. 
The sheaths seem to represent abortive leaves, filhe fructification consists of 
terminal cone-like heads) In some spec es the deposit of silicious matter 
is so great, that the whole of the vegetable substance may be destroyed by 
maceration, the form of the plant being preserved entire in the flinty 
coating. It has been found that the ashes contain half their weight of silica. 
The jointed tubular silcious stems, and terminal cones of fructification, 
are marks by which the Equisitums may always be readily distinguished 
from all other plants. 
243. Equisetum debile, Roxburgh. — Calcutta Journ. Nat. Hist. 1846, t. 
26. ex Pritzel’s Icon. Bot. Index, Royle’s Illus. of the Bot. Him. 431. 
As walga-tana, Sin (meaning Horsetail) Moon Cat. 75. 1824. I found this 
plant on the road side quite common, between Nuwara Eliya Plains and 
Hackgalla in 1859, and again in 1870- “ It has been described by Dr. 
Roxburgh as indigenous in Bengal, and has been found in Dindygal by Wight, 
in Burma by Wallich. (E. pallens), and along the foot of the Plimalayas 
from Silvet to Deyra Doon, as well as in the Northern Doab along the 
banks of the Jumna, though some of these vary in appearance from Dr. 
Roxburhh’s Bengal specimens.” Royle 1. c. I have not seen Roxburgh’s de- 
scription nor figure, of this apparent outcast of its race in Ceylon, and my 
specimens have been much eaten by insects. It appears, however, to some- 
what belie its specific name, as my specimens are erect, few branched and 
somewhat rigid. — To those who take an interest in the fossil plants repre- 
sented by living plumbers of the same family, this plant is of great interest 
and to those who like the writer delight to recognise allies of common 
plants of the North of Scotland amid Asia, where Europe smiles, the writer 
trusts that the sight of this plant by any traveller on the road from 
Nuwara Eliya to Hackgala will remind him of the trite expression, 
“ One touch of Nature makes the w’hole world kin. 
