What is horsetail(Equisetum arvense (L)) and it's super function?

Contents

• Botanical Basic Data of Horsetail.
• Common horsetail,plant description.
• Horsetail origin and class.
• Part Used Medicinally of horsetail.
• Constituents and phytochemicals of Horsetail.
• Applications of Horsetail Products.
• Therapeutics and Pharmacology of horsetail.
• Action,Medical Uses,and Dosage of horsetail.
• Horsetail from Ancient toModern times.
• Photo Gallery of Equisetum arvense.

Common horsetail,plant description.:

Plants perennial herbs; dimorphic aerial stems persisting for one year or less: vegetative stems green, with branches at stem nodes in whorls of 3~4; fertile stems, pallid brown, unbranched, shorter than the vegetative stems, with larger sheaths; fleshy; short lived; with perennial underground black stems, (see image library); less than 15 cm high (cold habitats), or more than 15 cm high; 2~40(~100) cm high. Roots pallid-brown, or red-brown, or black. Ground-level or under-ground stems horizontal; rhizomatous (usually); elongate, or compact; 0.7~2 mm wide. Scales present; 3~4; (0.5~)2~5(~10) mm long ((0.5~) 2~5(~9) mm wide); glabrous.

 Picture right shows the top of a fertile stem of horsetail. The infertile stem is green (and seemingly slower to grow).

 Aerial stems erect; conspicuously jointed with nodes covered by whorls of tiny leaves fused for part of their length into sheaths that are tipped with teeth (branches develop in regular 3~4 channels between the ridges; the first internode of each branch is longer than the subtending stem sheath); not filiform (usually); squarish; with 3~4 ridges; glabrous (the nodes covered by leaf sheaths or branches). Branches yellowish (usually present; absent in other Canadian Arctic Equisetum taxa).
 
 Leaves distributed along the stems; whorled; simple; deciduous (on stems that persist for 1 year or less). Petioles absent. Leaf bases truncate (into the fused sheath).


 Blades 0.5~1 mm long (these are the "leaf teeth" of Flora North America, vegetative stem leaves; 0.1~0.3 mm long); 0.05~3 mm wide (leaves on the fertile stems with larger, fleshy, sheaths); appressed to the stem; herbaceous (or scarious); straight; lanceolate, or triangular; flat; with parallel veins, or appearing single-veined, or with inconspicuous veins; adaxial surface glabrous. Blades abaxial surface glabrous. Leaf apices acuminate, or acute. Plants asexual, or reproducing by spores borne in sporangia. Sporangia in terminal cone-like structures (on pale brown fertile stems that lack chlorophyll; cones mature early in the spring.).

 Horsetail is a dimorphic perennial plant common throughout the temperate northern hemisphere in Asia, Europe, and North America. Two distinct chemotypes have been identified, one from Europe and the other from Asia and North America, which can be differentiated chemically by the detection of certain characteristic flavonoids unique to each chemotype.The material of commerce comes from Albania, Hungary, Poland, the former Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, and the former USSR,China,A relative to ferns, horsetails reproduce through spore transport, not by seeds.
 

 Under the Jack in the pulpit there are some Horsetails. They are the plants that only have green branches, no leaves. On the plant behind and to the right of the Jack, the branches coming off the stem may be discerned. As only the tops of the foreground plants are shown, they misleadingly look like grass. If you click on the picture to view the enlargement, this is a little easier to see.
 (The Jack in the Pulpit is the larger forground plant that has the two stalks, each with three large leaves and a partially hidden Jack in the Pulpit blossum from which the plant gets it's name. This blossum will be purple when it is fully mature.)
 Horsetail considered as being the 'stickman' plant. This plant has no leaves. It has only stems. The stems are green and the photosynthesis and other plant processes are performed in the green stems. It is quite distinct and easily identified. It will usually be found in wet areas.

Reference:

• What is horsetail(Equisetum arvense (L)) and it's super function?

This article written and edited via herbalist of MDidea Extracts Professional. They run a range of online descriptions about this herb,including general information related and summarized updating discoveries from findings of professional scientisits this field related.Describe style aimed to form a useful detecting literature space where the intertwined threshold and related questions raise out and visualize themselves.

♣ last edit date:08th,Oct.2010.