BRITANNIC iE. 
F I L I C E S 
are unequal in length, confifting of an uncertain number of pentangular 
joints, with quinquidentate black vaginae at each joint. 
BARREN LEAVES, 
Thefe grow from the fame root with the fertile ones, and refembic 
them in fubftance and colour, but are taller and conlift of more numerous 
joints ; in a full grown plant, twenty or more ; and the fecond leaves 
are alfo longer and more numerous. One of the fecond leaves is a little 
magnified at a. 
It grows in marfhy places, about brooks and woods. On the banks 
of the canal below Mear-Clough-Bottom^ near Halifax^ plentifully, along 
with the two former fpecies; it fiowers in May. 
It is diftinguifhed from the Equifetum limofum, by being a le'fler 
plant, by its fmall black root, by having fewer dents in the vagina, and 
in that the firfi: leaves always produce fecondary ones about the joints; 
but in the limofum they are frequently naked. 
Sometimes the fecondary leaves are fertile, producing fmall flower 
fpikes on their fummits, as figured by Dillenius, in Ray’s Synopfis, PL 
5 - 3 - 
I have feen the fecondary leaves fertile, but never, except in inftances 
where the primary flower fpike had been bit, or accidentally broken ofEl 
EQ^UISET'UM 
