Plantain horsetails

That's what I grew up calling this plant: "horsetails." But that's a

confusing term since it applies to some other plants. <i>Plantago

major</i> is the proper scientific name, but most people don't have

that term falling off their lips.



Forty-odd years ago I (briefly) studied archaeology and found out that

this plant is often called "white man's foot." I have thought that it

is an apt name, since it grows around the footpaths made in places

that Europeans colonised. At a dig I studied reports of back then,

its pollen or seeds were a diagnostic of when the site was used; it

must have been post European contact. This one is growing in my

backyard.