Friday, May 04, 2007

Horsetails, Early Tree-Like Plants

2 comments:

  1. In Central Oregon we have a plant we call horsetail, but it doesn't look like your picture. It doesn't get that ferny bit at the tip, at least not that I've seen. I've been trying to look it up this evening but all references appear to be on the forest service web site, which is down for maintenance.

    Now I am so! curious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jennifer, now I'm curious too! The bottle-brush look only arrives once the plant fully emerges... until then they're sort of straight and stick-looking. In the book Trees by Roland Ennos, there is a good explanation of how the ancestors of the plants shown in this picture were some of the first attempts at "tree-like forms" that mother nature tried!

    If you have the chance, I hope you'll post some pictures of your horsetails so we can compare notes!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.