Primitive horsetails show toughness

Horsetails are in their full glory now, looking crisp and green even as the season's wind, rain and pests have taken their toll on most other plants.

Horsetails' toughness is no surprise. They're plants that felt the rush of air from whooshing dinosaurs' tails, that were present at the dawn of civilization, and that happily endure today.

One glance at the horsetail tells of its primitive nature. Instead of broad leaves, or even needles, horsetails have microphylls, leaves so small that each contains but a single vein.

And don't look for flowers. Like ferns, horsetails have spores instead of seeds.

Lack of flowers or leaves doesn't make horsetails homely. Common horsetail, one species, has wiry, thin, lime-green stems that branch in whorls like pines. Colonies of this plant carpet the ground to resemble a pine forest in miniature, each "tree" a foot or so high.

Another horsetail species, called scouring rush, is unbranched, its dark-green, pencil-thick stems rising in clumps a couple of feet high. These hollow, jointed stems might easily be mistaken for some kind of leafless bamboo.

Like other wild plants, horsetails do have a place in the garden. Be careful about where you plant horsetails, though, because in too congenial surroundings they will spread vigorously and may become weedy.

Plant horsetails either in sun or shade. Common horsetail prefers moist to dryish soils -- at the edge of a wooded area, for example. Scouring rush creates a bold accent with its robust, clumping stems, so is perhaps the better horsetail for the cultivated garden.

This horsetail also likes wet soil, even standing water, and makes a nice waterside plant, its stems rising up from the flat surface of the water as their reflection dips downward.

Besides their ornamental qualities, horsetails have their practical sides. Infusing the stems in hot water makes a "tea" that is sometimes sprayed on plants to help thwart plant diseases. Horsetail poultices have been used on external wounds.

A high silica content makes horsetail stems gritty, gritty enough for scrubbing pots, and that's how the plant got the name scouring rush. Horsetail also makes a fine polish for all sorts of other wood and metal items, its grittiness about on a par with the finest grade of steel wool.

If you have enough patience, you could just let your horsetail plants sit and turn to coal. After all, it was these plants' ancestors, growing during the Carboniferous Period more than 300 million years ago, that gave rise to today's coal deposits.