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twenty joints ; five or fix o f which joints arc deftitute o f fecond leaves,
but are, as well as the reft, furrounded each with a vagina, not inflated
as in the fertile ftioot, but clofely embracing the ftem ; they are ol a
pale-green colour, and each is divided in about twelve black acute points
at the margin.
The fecond leaves grow from the bafe o f the vaginæ, at the joints of
the firft leaf ; each has a pale-coloured, pellucid, quadridentate, proper
vagina, at its bafe ; each confifts of eight or ten joints, quadrangular,
with quadridentate vaginæ at each joint. In d'.e fpecimen before me, the
firft leaf confifts of fixteen joints, five of which, from the root, produce
no fecond leaves ; -at the fixth the leaves are ihorter than at the feventh,
and grow gradually"a little longer upwards to the tenth, from whence
they diminifti to the top, where they are ihorteft.
The barren leaves in this plant fo nearly refemble thofe of the
Equifetum paluftre, in fome ftages, that they are not eafily diftmguiihed
at firft fight ; but may at all times be known by this remark. That the
fecond leaves in the arvenfe are quadrangular, and the vaginæ quadnden-
tate ; but in the paluftre they are pentangular and qulnquidentate.
The fertile fhoots o f this fpecies cannot be diftmguiihed from thofe
o f the Equifetum fylvaticum, before the fecond leaves appear, except by
the number of lafcinæ into which the vaginæ are divided, m the hrlt
being twelve, in the laft three or four.
It grows in ihady moift places about woods and rivulets, and flowers
in April.