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| Common Horsetail; Equisetum arvense L. |
Horsetail Family; EQUISETACEÆ
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| Horsetail is very well known, but most unpopular; extremely abundant, but people wish it would disappear. Laboring under a
load of hate, it calmly, tirelessly, exists as it has for millions of years. Long before humans walked the earth, even before the age of
dinosaurs, horsetails grew, over 200 million years ago! |
| People sometimes call horsetail a "fern," or "grass." Fine with me, but strictly speaking, it is more primitive than either. By
primitive I mean ancient in an evolutionary sense, and unelaborate compared to flowering plants. The plant is not at all weak or ill-adapted in
the vegetative struggle for existence. On the contrary, few plants so thrive. All over the Northern Hemisphere
Equisetum arvense grows. "Arvense" means "of the fields" but the weed is by no means limited to fields. It does need fairly moist soil. We see it locally in
swampy areas, heavy soil, as a rockery pest and in ditches. It often grows with creeping buttercup, morning glory, bittersweet nightshade, and
dock. It bursts through asphalt paving with languid ease. |
| Is it necessary to describe the appearance of such a common plant? I will. After winter kills the old shoots, new ones arise from
the roots between mid-February and early May. These shoots are of two kinds: fertile spore-bearing ones (small, pink-beige, soon
withering), and the familiar green wiry sort, which last all summer and autumn before finally turning silvery-gray in November. The well
known, persistent shoots reach 1 to 2 feet tall, and are segmented into hollow joints; they are ringed by numerous skinny, dry, raspy
wire-like branches. The whole plant is inodorous, hard-textured with graininess, and when crumpled by human hands makes a good scour, like
fine-texture sandpaper. It is a crisp, weird weed. Other names are Chinese Puzzle, Snakegrass, Pine Grass, Meadow Pipes, Pinetop,
Field Horsetail, Devil's Guts, Snake Pipes, Horse Pipes, and Frog Pipes. |
| Common Horsetail (E. arvense) grows a foot or two tall. Giant Horsetail (E. Telmateia) reaches 3 to
71/2 feet tall. Others exist, one of which (E. hyemale) is evergreen, dark, and without wiry branches. Only Common Horsetail is often a garden weed; the other
kinds frequent wilder haunts. |
| If just a stem or two of horsetail grew amongst us, we would not mind it. Indeed we might admire its novelty. But the problem is
its far-ranging tuberous root-system throws up thick stands of shoots which choke other plants. If we pluck out a stem, we return a week
or so later only to see a new clump of green there! Weeding horsetail is exasperating. Defeating it takes a lengthy, great effort. |
There is some interesting, if not good, news. Horsetail has been found to accumulate gold in its cells. A ton of fresh horsetails can
have as much as 41/2 ounces of gold! So reports a book called World's Worst Weeds, on page 266. Apparently profitable harvesting of the gold is impossible. But you can use the horsetail as an emery board substitute, or as a gentle scour for dishes or whatever. Sometimes
called "scrubgrass," it owes its roughness to being rich in silica, like fine sand. Reports vary concerning the edibility or toxicity of horsetail. I
never thought it inviting as a food, nor flavorful. But some people cook and eat the young fertile shoots as a sort of asparagus substitute. Nonetheless, livestock have been poisoned by consuming the gritty weed. Best to eat
other early spring wild plants. Herbalists have used horsetails, but not to a great extent.
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Originally published as the Seattle Tilth newsletter Weed of the Month in December 1990, along with an illustration from a book.
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