Seasonal Wild Flowers

Latin name

Equisetum arvense

Other names

Common Horsetail

Family

Equisetaceae

Flowering season

Fertile stems arise from late March to May.

Vegetative stems slightly later.It is found throughout the

country

For a map see the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland –

Field Horsetail

Habitat

It grows in a range of habitats in the wild, for example, by

rivers and canal, grassland and sea-cliffs.

It is also an agricultural and garden weed and colonisers

roadsides, railways and waste land in general.

Description

Field Horsetail is a native, deciduous, rhizomatous,

perennial herb, growing up to 80cm.

Fertile stems are cream and non-photosynthetic and grow

up to 30cm. They have prominent sheaths which are

pale at the base and with up to 20 brown pointed teeth.

This is fewer that in Great Horsetail.

Spores are produced on an apical strobilus (cone).

Each cone has numerous hexagonal scales which

produce up to 20 spore cases on their undersides.

The spores are dispersed and germinate to form a

small, green, independent prothallus on which the

male and female gametes are formed.

The horsetail we see is the sporophyte which is the

result of the fusion of the male and female gametes

from the prothallus.

After spore dispersal, the fertile stems die.

Sterile, vegetative stems appear towards the end of

the life of the fertile stems.

They are green, photosynthetic and up to 80cm.

The stems are green and have whorls of thin green

branches at the nodes. The sheathes at the nodes

have fewer teeth than in Great Horsetail.

Field Horsetail can form extensive patcheds as a

result of aerial growth from the rhizomes. They can

withstand dry conditions better than other horsetails

and persist as a garden and arable weed. 

Spread is by spores and fragments of rhizome.