232 HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS.
view, it is, at least in tins country, of very small importance.
It is, however, stated to be used in Sweden as food for
cattle, “ in order that the cows may give more milk and
in Lapland, it is, even when dry, eaten with avidity by the
rein-deer, though they will not touch common hay. Linnæus
censures the improvidence of the Laplanders, in not providing
during summer a supply of this plant and of the
Eein-deer Moss, for winter use; thus making some provision
for their herds at a time when the ground is covered with
frost-bound snowq so as not to risk the loss of their most
valuable or entire possessions. An instance is related by Mr.
Knapp, in which a colony of the short-tailed water-rats
made this plant their food, and in the evening might be
heard champing it at many yards’ distance.
E q u ise tum M a ck a y i, Newman.—Dr. Mackay’s Eough
Horsetail.
This plant, on its discovery in the United Kingdom
being first make known, was named E. elongatum by Sir
W. J. Hooker. Mr. Newman has, however, since shown
that it is not the species to which that name belongs, and
he has given it that which we employ, it being applied in
compliment to one of the original discoverers of the plant.
It is one of those species in which the stems that produce
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 branchless,
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. Sometimes,
indeed, the upper part of the stem is also sparingly
branched, bat the branches are produced singly from the
whorls ; in very luxuriant plants, the branches are now and
then themselves branched upon a similar plan.
Like the other species, this has a branching underground
creeping stem, which is black, and produces whorls of
branched fibrous roots from its joints. The above-ground
stems are slender, and erect in their mode of growth j from
two to three or four feet high ; deeply furrowed, with a
double row of elevated points along the ridges, which are
usually from eight to twelve, but sometimes fourteen in
number. The sheaths are close, cylindrical, and striated
like the stem, terminating in a number of teeth equalling
the striæ ; these teeth are long, slender, awl-shaped, black
with pale membranous margins, and usually, but not always,
persistent. The sheaths are, for the most part,
entirely black, but here and there they occur with a narrow
A. i