270 
HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS, 
dwarf stunted growth. We have had no opportunity of 
testing their constancy in cultivation, neither are we aware 
of any experiments having been made on this point, but 
we should expect they would both revert to the common 
form under the influences of domestication. 
Equisetum ramosum, Schleicher. 
Long Rough Horsetail. 
This plant, on its discovery in the United Kingdom 
being first made known, was named E. elongatum by Sir 
W. J. Hooker, and it has since been called E. Machayi 
by Mr. Newman, and identified as the E. trachyodon of 
A. Braun by Mr. Babington. Mr. Bentham and others 
refer it to E. ramosum. 
It is one of those species in which the stems that pro- 
duce the fructification, and those which are barren, do not 
differ in any other respect, and are therefore said to be 
similar ; and in which, also, the stems are almost branch- 
less, the branching being mostly confined to the production 
of one or two erect lateral stems from near the base, and 
this lateral branching is by no means common. Some- 
times, indeed, the upper part of the stem is also sparingly 
branched, but the branches are produced singly from the 
