Plate 61. 
EQUISETUM sylvaticum, Linn . 
Branched Wood Horsetail. 
Equisetum (§ Subvernalia*) sylvaticum; one to two feet high; barren and fer¬ 
tile fronds with about twelve furrows, fertile ones eventually branched like 
the sterile; sheaths with three to five long membranaceous obtuse teeth; 
branches compound, whorled, slender, and much deflexed, their sheaths 
with subulate long teeth, each one-ribbed to the apex; catkin terminal, 
obtuse. 
Equisetum sylvaticum. Linn.Sp. PI. p. 1546. Schk. Pil. t. 166. 8m. Engl. 
Bot. t. 1874. Bolt. Ml. p. 30. t. 32, 33. 8m. Engl. FI. v. 4. p. 336. 
Vauch. Monogr. p. 37. t. 3. Buval-Jouve , in Bull. Soc. Bot. v. 5 . p. 516. 
/. 3. Hook, and Am. Brit. FI. ed. 8 . p. 600. Coss. and Germ. FI. Euv. 
Par. p. 878. Newm. Brit. Ferns , p. 59 ( with a figure'). Gray , Man. of 
Bot. III. p. 586. 
Hab. Frequent in boggy places and wet woods in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
from the Isle of Wight in the south to the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland, 
according to Mr. Hewett Watson. 
In a genus like that of the Horsetails we do not expect much 
that is beautiful; but our Equisetum Telmateja , PI. 58, and the 
present are really handsome plants; and the advantage of size in 
favour of the former is compensated for by the grace and real 
elegance of the latter. B. sylvaticum springs in large patches 
from the black creeping underground roots or caudices which in¬ 
terlace each other copiously. In the young state, the stems are, 
as it were, bleached, having no green colour, and are destitute 
of branches both in the sterile and fertile fronds; soon, however, 
the fertile ones, as well as the sterile, throw out copious whorls 
of slender, drooping, compound green branches, and after a time 
the former cast off their terminal catkins, and both kinds assume 
a similar appearance, except that the fertile are more obtuse 
at the apex. A mass of these plants not inaptly resembles a 
miniature grove of drooping Larches. 
The species is common in the middle United States of Ame- 
* § Subvernalia, Al. Braun: “ Stems of two kinds, sterile and fertile; the fer¬ 
tile appearing at the same time with the sterile, never green nor branched when 
young, persistent after the maturity of the spike, throwing out whorls of green 
branches and then resembling the sterile stems.” Our last species, E. umbrosum 
(Plate 60), sometimes assumes the character belonging to this section. 
