Field Horsetail
Scientific name: Equisetum arvense L.
Diagnostic features
Vegetative stems to 80cm, deciduous, smooth to touch, with dense whorls of long branches, with 6-20 rounded ridges.
Cones on special, unbranched brown stems to 20(30)cm appearing before vegetative stems, rounded at apex.
Chromosome number: 2n=216.
Habitat
Native; grassy places, damp places, dune-slacks and rough, waste and cultivated ground, often a very pervasive weed.
Distribution
Abundant throughout British Isles.
This species is keyed out on Page 6and on Page 17 of the Text Key.
Hybrids
- Equisetum x rothmaleri C.N. Page (= Equisetum arvense x Equisetum palustre) was found in N Ebudes in 1972, Herts in 1987, and since then elsewhere in Scotland; it is intermediate between the parents (cones on normal vegetative shoots) and sterile.
- Equisetum x robertsii Dines (= Equisetum arvense x Equisetum telmateia) was found in Anglesey in 2000; endemic. Cones have not been found.
- Equisetum litorale(x) Kühlew. ex Rupr. (=Equisetum fluviatile x Equisetum arvense) |
