Before the green curtain descends

Making the most of my dried specimens before summer’s green curtain descends. I adore horsetail. Here is just a few of the reasons why:

Modern horsetails first appeared during the Jurassic period.
The group is now almost extinct, but one genus survives: Equisetum is the only living genus of horsetails.
Horsetails are native on all continents except Australasia and Antarctica.
Horsetail was one of the most important plant groups in the Palaeozoic era.
They are seen in the coal measures of the Carboniferous period, and some were trees reaching up 30 metres.
They are vascular plants that reproduce by spores and not by seeds.
The name horsetail came because the branched species somewhat look like a horse’s tail.

dried horsetail stems (Equisetum)