SafePlants

Considerations for Pets

• Field horsetail is mentioned as being poisonous to livestock.

Considerations for Children

• The plant has a rough texture.
• People used to polish pewter with it, but it is brittle and breaks easily.

Common Names

• Field Horsetail
• Common Horsetail
• Bottlebrush
• Foxtail
• Horse Pipes
• Pipe Weed
• Jointed Rush
• Cat's Tail
• Mare's Tail (Note: This name is sometimes misapplied)
• Horse-pipes
• Joint-grass
• Meadow-pine
• Paddock-pipes
• Pine-grass
• Scingrush
• Shave-grass

Other names include: prle des champs, queue-de-renard, prle commune, Corn Horsetail, Dutch rushes, Equiseto Menor, Western Horsetail.

Taxonomy and Nomenclature

• Scientific Name: Equisetum arvense L.
• Family: Equisetaceae (Horsetail Family)

Synonyms and alternative scientific names are not provided in the text.

Distribution and Habitat

• Native to arctic and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.
• Widely distributed in the UK in meadows, gardens, and on wasteland.
• Found throughout the temperate northern hemisphere, including nearly all of North America.
• Also found in Madagascar, South Africa, South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Grows strongly on arable and grassland.
• Prefers damp, open areas.
• Common on waste ground, roadsides and grassland.
• Streamsides, wetlands

Ecological Role

• Considered an invasive, deep-rooted weed.
• Regrows each spring/summer from an extensive underground root system.
• Can be a particular problem in gardens.

Morphological Characteristics and Growth Habits

• Herbaceous perennial plant.
• Grows to 0.6 m (2ft) tall, but sometimes up to 1.5 ft (0.5 m).
• Spreads extensively via rhizomes.
• Dimorphic, growing two different type stems annually.
• Light green in color with a mass of spindly, very thin leaves growing from a single stem.
• Has a rough texture.
• Grows from tuber-bearing rhizomes.
• Sterile, green stems 20 to 80 cm, erect or decumbent, slightly rough, with 6 to 18 vertical ridges.
• Stems branched, usually without.
• Cones c 1-4 cm.
• Erect stems usually bear many branches in whorls. There are conspicuous sheaths at.
• Dies back in winter.

Interactions with Other Organisms

• Field horsetail and brakenfern cause neurological syndromes in horses due to thiaminase enzyme activity found in the plant tissues.

Quirky Facts

• Field horsetail was the dominant plant group during the Carboniferous age more than 230 million years ago.
• People used to polish their pewter with it.
• The young shoots are edible.

Further Information

• BBC Gardeners' World Magazine
• WebMD
• Pacific Northwest Extension Publication &#8226 Oregon &#8226 Idaho &#8226 Washington
• www.weeds.iastate.edu/mgmt/2009/equisetum.pdf (IOWA STATE)
• NZ Landcare Trust