The Living Forest (37) : Horsetail

In the forest wild flowers, plants, herbs and ferns have started growing again.

This leafless stalk is the early spring stage of the Horsetail (reduced leaves will appear later on).

In fact, Horsetail is the only (!) surviving genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was very diverse and dominated the forests all over the world with some large trees reaching to 30 m tall.

Dutch name : Heermoes (syn. Akkerpaardestaart)
German name : Acker-Schachtelhalm
Latin name : Equisetum arvense