''Equisetum giganteum'', with the common name southern giant horsetail, is a species of

horsetail ''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 ...

native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, from central

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

east to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and north to southern Mexico.

Description

It is one of the largest horsetails, growing tall, exceeded only by the closely allied '' Equisetum myriochaetum'' (up to relying on surrounding plants' support). The stems are the stoutest of any horsetail, 1–2 cm diameter (up to 3.5 cm (1.33 inches) in diameter in some populations), and bear numerous whorls of very slender branches; these branches are not further branched, but some terminate in spore cones. Unlike some other horsetails, it does not have separate photosynthetic sterile and non-photosynthetic spore-bearing stems. Populations from northern Chile with very stout stems up to 3.5 cm diameter have sometimes been treated as a separate species ''Equisetum xylochaetum'',''Equisetum xylochaetum''
at

Flora Brasiliensis ''Flora Brasiliensis'' is a book published between 1840 and 1906 by the editors Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, August Wilhelm Eichler, Ignatz Urban and many others. It contains taxonomic treatments of 22,767 species, mostly Brazilian angiosp ...

online but this is not widely regarded as distinct.

References

External links

*
fiu.edu: Giant Horsetails
* Lorenzi, H. & Souza, M. S. (2001). ''Plantas Ornamentais no Brasil: arbustivas, herbáceas e trepadeiras.'
Online
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2716544 giganteum Ferns of the Americas Flora of Central America Flora of South America Flora of Brazil Flora of Chile Flora of Colombia Flora of Costa Rica Flora of Ecuador Flora of Panama Flora of Mexico Flora of Venezuela Flora of the Yucatán Peninsula Plants described in 1759 Garden plants of Central America Garden plants of South America Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus