Horsetails

Horsetails always fascinate me and I love to take macro photos of them. This time I photographed a group of them, as I thought it was quite a nice cluster. This is Equisetum arvense, commonly known as Field Horsetail or Common Horsetail - the spores are contained in the beautiful cone-like strobilus.

Seen on the May Species Count on 25 May 2014, when seven of us spent the day covering a large area SW of Calgary and W of Priddis. It was a most enjoyable day, as well as very successful - a total of 69 bird species.

"Equisetum (/ˌɛkwɨˈsiːtəm/; horsetail, snake grass, puzzlegrass) is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds.

Equisetum is a "living fossil" as it is the only living genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was much more diverse and dominated the understory of late Paleozoic forests. Some Equisetopsida were large trees reaching to 30 meters tall. The genus Calamites of the family Calamitaceae, for example, is abundant in coal deposits from the Carboniferous period." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum