singularly blunt at the summit, not tapering into a caudate apex. 
In general appearance the barren frond resembles JE. sylvaticum, 
from which it is at once distinguished by the simple, erecto- 
patent, not compound, and drooping branches. 
Under some or other of the above names (for the synonymy 
of the JEquisetacecs is still very unsettled) the present plant seems 
of late to be found generally on the continent of Europe, from 
tlie southern Alps to Scandinavia, and in the middle and northern 
United States, and in British North America, from Hudson’s 
Bay to the Rocky Mountains ( Drummond ). 
It happens not unfrequently in European and in North Ame¬ 
rican specimens, that the fertile fronds become, if I may so say, 
sterile ones, by the dying away of the spike and the joints 
sending out whorls of branches. 
Plate 59. Fertile frond and portion of a sterile stem and branches ,—natural 
size. Fig. 1. Portion of a transverse section of the stem, showing the lacunes,— 
magnified. 
