Justfolk's photos with the keyword: 17916

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.