The ferns are a group of vascular plants that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissues that conduct water and nutrients and in having life cycles in which the branched sporophyte is the dominant phase.
Equisetum is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds.
Echinacea is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the daisy family. It has ten species, which are commonly called coneflowers. They are found only in eastern and central North America, where they grow in moist to dry prairies and open wooded areas. They have large, showy heads of composite flowers, blooming in summer. The generic name is derived from the Greek word ἐχῖνος, meaning "hedgehog", due to the spiny central disk. These flowering plants and their parts have different uses. Some species are cultivated in gardens for their showy flowers. Two of the species, E. tennesseensis and E. laevigata, were formerly listed in the United States as endangered species; E. tennesseensis has been delisted due to recovery and E. laevigata is now listed as threatened.
Equisetaceae, also known as the horsetail family, is a family of ferns and the only surviving family of the order Equisetales, with one surviving genus, Equisetum, comprising about twenty species.
Equisetales is an order of subclass Equisetidae with only one living family, Equisetaceae, containing the genus Equisetum (horsetails).
Equisetum fluviatile, the water horsetail or swamp horsetail, is a vascular plant that commonly grows in dense colonies along freshwater shorelines or in shallow water in ponds, swamps, ditches, and other sluggish or still waters with mud bottoms. It is a perennial herbaceous species, growing 30–100 cm tall with erect dark green stems 2–8 mm in diameter, smooth, with about 10–30 fine ridges. At each joint, the stem has a whorl of tiny, black-tipped scale leaves 5–10 mm long. Many, but not all, stems also have whorls of short ascending and spreading branches 1–5 cm long, with the longest branches on the lower middle of the stem. The side branches are slender, dark green, and have 1–8 nodes with a whorl of five scale leaves at each node. The water horsetail has the largest central hollow of the horsetails, with 80% of the stem diameter typically being hollow.
Equisetidae is one of the four subclasses of Polypodiopsida (ferns), a group of vascular plants with a fossil record going back to the Devonian. They are commonly known as horsetails. They typically grow in wet areas, with whorls of needle-like branches radiating at regular intervals from a single vertical stem.
A pteridophyte is a vascular plant that disperses spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as "cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden.
Equisetum giganteum, with the common name southern giant horsetail, is a species of horsetail native to South America and Central America, from central Chile east to Brazil and north to southern Mexico.
Equisetum arvense, the field horsetail or common horsetail, is an herbaceous perennial plant in the Equisetidae (horsetails) sub-class, native throughout the arctic and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It has separate sterile non-reproductive and fertile spore-bearing stems growing from a perennial underground rhizomatous stem system. The fertile stems are produced in early spring and are non-photosynthetic, while the green sterile stems start to grow after the fertile stems have wilted and persist through the summer until the first autumn frosts. It is sometimes confused with mare's tail, Hippuris vulgaris.
Equisetum palustre, the marsh horsetail, is a plant species belonging to the division of horsetails (Equisetopsida). It is widespread in cooler regions of North America and Eurasia.
Equisetum telmateia, the great horsetail or northern giant horsetail, is a species of Equisetum (puzzlegrass) with an unusual distribution, with one subspecies native to Europe, western Asia and northwest Africa, and a second subspecies native to western North America. The North American subspecies is often simply but ambiguously called "giant horsetail", but that name may just as well refer to the Latin American Equisetum giganteum and Equisetum myriochaetum.
Equisetum hyemale is a perennial herbaceous fern in the horsetail family Equisetaceae. It is a native plant throughout the Holarctic Kingdom, found in North America, Europe, and northern Asia.
Giant horsetails are usually living species of horsetail that grow to very large sizes, more than 1.5 metres.
Equisetum myriochaetum, also known as Mexican giant horsetail, is a species of horsetail that is native to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. It is the largest horsetail species, commonly reaching 15 feet (4.6 m), with the largest recorded specimen having a height of 24 feet (7.3 m). At each node is a whorl of as many as 32 branchlets. It is semi-aquatic and is often found growing on riverbanks.
Equisetum scirpoides Michx., Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 281 (1803). 2 n = 216.The smallest of the currently occurring representatives of the genus Equisetum (horsetail).
Equisetum thermale is an extinct horsetail species in the family Equisetaceae described from a group of whole plant fossils including rhizomes, stems, and leaves. The species is known from Middle to Late Jurassic sediments exposed in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina. It is one of several extinct species placed in the living genus Equisetum.
Neocalamites is an extinct genus of equisetalean plant. Neocalamites thrived during the Permian and Triassic, and occurs worldwide. Recent phylogenetic analysis has placed the genus as more closely related to modern Equisetaceae than to Calamitaceae.
Equisetum dimorphum is an extinct horsetail species of the family Equisetaceae, and one of the oldest records of the genus Equisetum. It was found in rocks from the Lower Jurassic of Chubut, Argentina, among other plants as ferns, conifers and pteridosperms. Their remains consist of stems, leaves, strobili, and pagoda structures, which are preserved as impressions and casts. The combination of fine grained sediment, and the probable silica deposits in the epidermis of the plant, have managed to conserve not only its gross morphology, but also epidermal details not often present in this kind of preservation. This species was described in 2015 in Ameghiniana by a team led by Andres Elgorriaga, that included investigators of the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio, the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and the Buenos Aires University.
