Plate 58. 
EQUISETUM Telmateja, Ehrh . 
Great Water Horse-tail . 
Gen. Char. Fructification terminal, in spikes or catkins, consisting of 
peltate polygonous scales, on the under side of which are from four to 
seven involucres; these open longitudinally, and contain numerous globose 
bodies, infolded by four filaments, clavate at their extremities .—Terrestrial 
or aquatic. Stems erect in vernation, cylindrical, striated or furrowed, 
leafless, jointed, every joint hollow in the centre, and with two circles of lesser 
cavities in the circumference, terminating in a toothed sheath, simple or 
branched; branches more or less whorled. Cuticle often rough and abound¬ 
ing in silex, which renders some of the species useful in polishing wood, 
metals, etc. 
Equisetum (§ Vernalia*) Telmateja; sterile stems, stout, three to six feet 
long, half an inch wide, smooth (not scabrous), with very numerous (about 
thirty) striae, and with erecto-patent simple branches, which have four pro¬ 
minent angles, each with a furrow; sheaths much shorter than the joints; 
fertile stems eight to ten inches long, one-half to three-quarters of an inch 
wide, including the large, lax sheaths which enclose them; spike two inches 
and more long. 
Equisetum Telmateija. Ehrh. Beitr. 2. p. 160. Be Cand. FI. Fr. 2. p. 581. 
Koch. Syn. FI. Germ. ed. 2 . p. 964. Newm. Brit. Ferns, p. 67 (with figures). 
Buval-Jouve, in Bull. Soc. Bot. Par. 5. p. 515. f. 2. Cosson , Flore des 
Env. de Paris , ed. 2. p. 877. Hook, and Am. Brit. FI. ed. 8. p. 599. 
Equisetum fluviatile. Linn. Sp. PI. p. 1517. Bolt. Fit. Brit. p. 66. t. 36, 37. 
Willd. Sp. PI. v. 5 . p. 2. Engl. Bot. t. 2022. Schk. Crypt. 1. 168. Vauch. 
Monogr. p. 35. t. 2. Sm. Engl. FI. 4. p. 337. 
Equisetum eburneum. Both. Cat. Bot. 1. p. 128. Asa Gray, Man. Bot. Illustr. 
p. 586. 
Equisetum majus. Raii Syn. p. 130. Ger. Em. 1113./. 
Had. Wet damp ground, sides of clay ditches, clay banks, and swampy bogs, in 
most English counties; less common in Scotland. 
* § Yernalia, At. Braun. “ Stems of two kinds, the one fertile , the other 
sterile; the fertile first developing, never green, unbranched, perishing, dry¬ 
ing up after the maturity of the spike; sterile ones green, furnished with 
whorled branches, and surviving through the winter.” A. Braun .—This cha¬ 
racter does not always hold good; not unfrequently the barren frond, as it is 
called, bears a spike of fructification, and sometimes the fertile stem becomes 
branched and is of longer duration. 
