Horsetails

The horsetails are vascular plants, comprising 15 species of plants in the genus Equisetum. This genus is the only one in the family Equisetaceae, which in turn is the only family in the order Equisetales and the class Equisetopsida. This class is often placed as the sole member of the Division Equisetophyta (also called Arthrophyta in older works), though some recent molecular analyses place the genus within Pteridophyta, related to Marattiales. The molecular data, however, are somewhat ambiguous as of yet. Other classes and orders of Equisetophyta are known from the fossil record, where they were important members of the world flora during the Carboniferous period.

The name horsetail arose because it was thought that the stalk resembled a horse's tail, the name Equisetum being from the Latin equus, "horse", and seta, "bristle". Other names, rarely used, include candock (applied to branching species only), and scouring-rush (applied to the unbranched or sparsely branched species). The latter refers to the plants' rush-like appearance; the stems were used for scouring cooking pots in the past (due to them being coated with abrasive silica).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photo ID = 040916_108k_7974

Keywords = Horsetails

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