Plants Pacific Northwest

Equisetum Species - Giant horse tail

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Equisetum Species: Equisetum telmatiea, Giant horsetail, snake grass.

The stems are of two types: sterile and fertile. The sterile stems branched, hollow with the central cavity 2/3 to 3/4 the diameter of the stem, to 3 meters tall, 2 cm thick, 14 - 30 ridged, the sheaths to 2.5 cm long, pale below, dark above. Fertile stems are unbranched, fleshy, to 60 cm tall; rhizomes black, covered with felt, bearing pear shaped tubers at the points.

The Giant Horsetail likes to form densely populated patches in wet areas, near streams, roadside ditches, usually near standing or flowing water, in low to middle elevations.

Giant Horsetail was the preferred horsetail (there are other, smaller varieties of horsetail) for native groups on the West coast. The young, spore-bearing and vegetable shoots of the giant horsetail were an important springtime vegetable of Coast Salish and Nuu-chah-nulth peoples. The shoots are picked when young, just after the spore tips have poked out of the ground. The spore caps are broken off the stem and eaten raw, sometimes with oil. The cap/head is covered by many, closely packed spore-poroducing cells. These must be peeled off to uncover the white, tender inner core. NOTE: the green, paper-like parts of the stem have been known to poison livestock and humans when eaten in large quantities. These plant parts have been used as pot and pan scrubbers with some success.

Horsetails are a very ancient group of plants that grew to the size of trees when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

In the very early spring, just after the ground is thawed, dig underneath last year's shriveled stalks. The future shoots are encased in brown sheaths in neat little clusters atop the long rootstock and very much resemble tubers. They taste better at this stage of growth, than the shoots that break the ground surface later on in the life cycle.