Water Horsetail, Equisetum fluviatile, Native Minnesota Wildflower plant, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Water Horsetail	Equisetum fluviatile L.	Horsetail	Woodland - Bog	Late Spring to Early Summer
Other names and notes	(River Horsetail). Horsetails are allies of ferns. The Water Horsetail is quite common in swamps and wet areas. The stem is green, 80% hollow, jointed, with 15 to 20 dark brown tooth-like points on a membrane at each joint from which the cylindrical leaves emerge. Some stems may branch near the top, Fertile stems end in a small spore producing cone. It grows from a rhizome in shallow water, less than 40" deep. The genus name is latin for "horsetail" and the species name refers to a river.


Above: Stems and tips of Water Horsetail. Above right and below: Extensive growth of the plant in the bog area of the Garden.

Notes: Martha Crone does not list this plant on her 1951 Garden Census, but it is so prevalent in the bog area today that it may certainly have been established at that earlier time. She wrote about it in the October 1953 issue of The Fringed Gentian™, saying it is "the last remainder of the large trees of the carbon forests, propagating by spores and creeping rootstalks." See it on the bog path - Lady Slipper Lane. Native to most of Minnesota except the dryer parts of the SW quarter. The plant is on the endangered list in several New England States.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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