are unequal in length, confifting of an uncertain number o f pentangular
joints, with qulnquidentate black vaginæ at each joint.
b a r r e n l e a v e s .
I
,rjs
■' Hi
Thefe grow from the fame root with the fertile ones, and refemblc
them in fubftance and colour, but are taller and confift 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 marihy places, about brooks and woods. On the banks
o f the canal below Mear-Clough-Bottom, near Halifax, plentifully, along
with the two former fpecies ; it flowers in May.
It is diftinguiihed-from the Equifetum limofum, by being a leffer
plant, by its fmall black root, by having fewer dents in the vagina, and
in that the firft 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 R a y ’ s Synopfis, PL
5- F g - 3-
I have feen the fecondary leaves fertile, but never, except in inftances
where the primary flower fpike had been bit, or accidentally broken off.