E Q U I S E T U M fluviatile.
Great Water Horsetail,
CRYPTOGAMIA Filices.
Gen. Char. Catkin composed of peltate scales,
flowering on their inside. Partial Calyx of 2'
valves. Seeds numerous, naked, enfolded by 4
pollen-bearing filaments.
S pec. Char. Sterile stems with innumerable roughish
branches, whose angles are double: flowering ones
unbranched; their sheaths not -far distant, with
numerous slender teeth.
Sy n . Equisetum fluviatile. Linn. Sp. PI. 1517. Sm.
FI. Brit. 1104. Huds. 448. With. 7 3H Hull.
233. Relh. 404. Sibth. 264. Abbot 222. Bolt.
Fil. 66. t. 36, 37.
majus. Ran Syn. 130.
E. Telmateia. Ehrh. Crypt. n. 31.
-XT? OUND here anti there in watery places, about the sheltered
banks of rivers and lakes, where its large long-branched
steins, often 6 feet high, make a magnificent and Indian-like
appearance. The flowering stalks come forth in April, resembling
those of E. arvense, but are twice as large, with
more abundant and less distant sheaths, whose teeth are narrower
and full twice as numerous as in that plant. The leafy
or rather branched stems are later, their main stalk pale and
scarcely furrowed, though roughish to the touchj branches
very numerous from top to bottom, whorled, often subdivided,
spreading, at length pendulous, slender, jointed, extremely
Tough, deeply marked with 4, rarely 5, furrows, as in the 2
foregoing species, but Mr. J. D. Sowerby has first observed
that the intermediate angles, terminating in each tooth, are
double, affording an excellent specific character. The same
circumstance is observable in the angles of the sheaths to the
main stem.
Ehrhart took E. limosum for the Linnsean fluviatile, there
being indeed much obscurity concerning these two widely
distinct species in authors, and therefore he gave the present
anew name, which happily is not wanted.
A .iy J Wog P M jh d /hjp .fi'w e iiH j Jiontim