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Common Horsetail
Equisetum arvense
  
6 Nurseries Carry This Plant

About Common Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) 6 Nurseries Carry This Plant Equisetum arvense, commonly known as the Field Horsetail or Common Horsetail, is a rather bushy perennial with a rhizomatous stem formation native to the northern hemisphere. These horsetails may have sterile or fertile stems. Sterile stems start to grow after the fertile stems have wilted. The sterile stems tend to be much taller and bushier, with the jointed segments being around one inch long with a diameter of about 1/20th of an inch. These segments contain one set of whorled, slender, erect branches each. Some stems can have as many as 20 segments and be as tall as 2-24 inches. The fertile stems tend to be half as tall as the sterile stems and also tend to be more succulent. This plant also has a very high diploid number - 216 (108 pairs of chromosomes) - which is roughly 5 times greater than the human diploid number (46).
Plant Description
Plant Type
Plant Type
Fern

Size
Size
0.17 - 2 ft tall

Form
Form
Upright

Growth Rate
Growth Rate
Fast

Flowering Season
Flowering Season
Spring

Landscaping Information
Sun
Sun
Shade, Part Shade

Moisture
Moisture
Moderate - High

Nurseries
Nurseries
Carried by 6

Soil Description
Soil Description
Adaptable, tolerant of sand, loam and clay

Common uses
Common uses
Bogs and Ponds, Bird Gardens

Sunset Zones
Sunset Zones?
1*, 2*, 3*, 4*, 5*, 6*, 7*, 8*, 9*, 14*, 15*, 16*, 17*, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Natural Setting
Site Type
Site Type
Moist, disturbed places

Climate
Climate
Annual Precipitation: 5.9" - 129.0", Summer Precipitation: 0.16" - 4.32", Coldest Month: 23.7" - 54.8", Hottest Month: 46.8" - 79.6", Humidity: 0.01" - 29.38", Elevation: 6" - 10562"

Alternative Names
Common Names: Common Horsetail Rush, Field Horsetail


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Sources include: Wikipedia. All text shown in the "About" section of these pages is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Plant observation data provided by the participants of the California Consortia of Herbaria, Sunset information provided by Jepson Flora Project. Propogation from seed information provided by the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden from "Seed Propagation of Native California Plants" by Dara E. Emery. Sources of plant photos include CalPhotos, Wikimedia Commons, and independent plant photographers who have agreed to share their images with Calscape. Other general sources of information include Calflora, CNPS Manual of Vegetation Online, Jepson Flora Project, Las Pilitas, Theodore Payne, Tree of Life, The Xerces Society, and information provided by CNPS volunteer editors, with special thanks to Don Rideout. Climate data used in creation of plant range maps is from PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University, using 30 year (1981-2010) annual "normals" at an 800 meter spatial resolution.

Links:   Jepson eFlora Taxon Page  CalPhotos  Wikipedia  Calflora


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