''Equisetum telmateia'', the great horsetail or northern giant horsetail, is a species of ''

Equisetum ''Equisetum'' (; horsetail, snake grass, puzzlegrass) is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of ferns, which reproduce by spores rather than seeds. ''Equisetum'' is a "living fossil", the only living genus of the entire subclass Eq ...

'' (puzzlegrass) with an unusual distribution, with one

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, western

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and northwest

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, and a second subspecies native to western

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

.Hyde, H. A., Wade, A. E., & Harrison, S. G. (1978). ''Welsh Ferns''. National Museum of Wales . The North American

is often simply but ambiguously called "giant horsetail", but that name may just as well refer to the

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

n ''

Equisetum giganteum ''Equisetum giganteum'', with the common name southern giant horsetail, is a species of horsetail native to South America and Central America, from central Chile east to Brazil and north to southern Mexico. Description It is one of the largest h ...

'' and '' Equisetum myriochaetum''.

Description

It is an

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

perennial plant A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

, with separate green

photosynthetic Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored in c ...

sterile stems, and pale yellowish non-photosynthetic

spore In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, f ...

-bearing fertile stems. The sterile stems, produced in late spring and dying down in late autumn, are 30–150 cm (rarely to 240 cm) tall (the tallest species of horsetail outside of tropical regions) and 1 cm diameter, heavily branched, with whorls of 14–40 branches, these up to 20 cm long, 1–2 mm diameter and unbranched, emerging from the axils of a ring of

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s. The fertile stems are produced in early spring before the sterile shoots, growing to 15–45 cm tall with an apical spore-bearing

strobilus A strobilus (plural: strobili) is a structure present on many land plant species consisting of sporangia-bearing structures densely aggregated along a stem. Strobili are often called cones, but some botanists restrict the use of the term cone to th ...

4–10 cm long and 1–2 cm broad, and no side branches; the spores disperse in mid spring, with the fertile stems dying immediately after spore release. It also spreads by means of rhizomes that have been observed to penetrate 4 meters into wet clay soil, spreading laterally in multiple layers.http://www2.fiu.edu/~chusb001/GiantEquisetum/Ecophysiology.html#RhizArch Occasionally plants produce stems that are both fertile and photosynthetic. Image:Equisetum telmateia 3.jpg, ''Equisetum telmateia'' subsp. ''braunii'', San Jose, California, showing green stem File:Equisetum telmateia 5.jpg, Spore-bearing strobilus

Subspecies

There are two subspecies:Flora of North America
''Equisetum telmateia''
/ref> * ''Equisetum telmateia'' subsp.
telmateia
'. Great horsetail. Europe, western Asia, northwest Africa. Main stem between branch whorls pale greenish white. * ''Equisetum telmateia'' subsp.
braunii
' (Milde) Hauke. Northern giant horsetail. Western North America, from southeastern

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

and western

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

south to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Main stem between branch whorls green.

Habitat

It is found in damp shady places, spring

fen A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. T ...

s and

seepage Soil mechanics is a branch of soil physics and applied mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids (usually air and wat ...

lines, usually in open woodlands, commonly forming large

clonal colonies A clonal colony or genet is a group of genetically identical individuals, such as plants, fungi, or bacteria, that have grown in a given location, all originating vegetatively, not sexually, from a single ancestor. In plants, an individual in s ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q936546 telmateia Flora of North America Flora of Europe Flora of Africa Plants described in 1783 Taxa named by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart