No wonder horse tail is such a pain!

[chris]

BBC News - Horsetail plant spores walk and jump, footage reveals

pretty cool!

[vikkib]

[zazen999]

Wowsers
...

[veggiechicken]

Thanks Chris They look like stickmen - I like them

[smc999]

Thanks Chris They look like stickmen - I like them

You wouldn't like them if you had them in your garden. ;-)
Our front lawn and garden is infested with the bloody stuff coming through from the field at the side of our house. I put domn old carpet and 105gsm weed supressing membrane and then 20mm gravel on top. The stuff is still poking its way through in places and requires a weekly "dead-heading".
In the event of a nuclear stirke I think it and coakroaches would be the only things left!

[veggiechicken]

I have it in my garden - pushing through the paving and out from under plastic covered in shingle that I thought would smother it. I still admire it's tenacity

[Pineberry]

It's rather a lovely looking invasive plant
Wikipedia tells us that its useful too:

Uses

The Water Horsetail has historically been used by both Europeans and Native Americans for scouring, sanding, and filing because of the high silica content in the stems. Early spring shoots were eaten. Medically it was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans to stop bleeding and treat kidney ailments, ulcers, and tuberculosis, and by the ancient Chinese to treat superficial visual obstructions. Rootstocks and stems are sometimes eaten by waterfowl. Horsetails absorb heavy metals from the soil, and are often used in bioassays for metals.
According to Carolus Linnaeus, reindeer, which refuse ordinary hay, will eat this horsetail, which is juicy, and that it is cut as fodder in the north of Sweden for cows, with a view to increasing their milk yield, but that horses will not touch it.

[binley100]

See.......I knew it was a chuffin' triffid....
I've even seen the stuff coming up through tarmac ......got it on my plot. anyone got a rendeer they can lend me ?

[mothhawk]

According to Carolus Linnaeus, reindeer, which refuse ordinary hay, will eat this horsetail, which is juicy, and that it is cut as fodder in the north of Sweden for cows, with a view to increasing their milk yield, but that horses will not touch it.

Maybe horses won't, but I've had ponies that actually ate the horsetail in their field to extinction. Minor miracle, I thought! Welshies, they were

[Piggle]

See I have alway said the stuff is evil, although I have a new foe...... Pigging bind weed.


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[HeatherL]

We have it in our garden too, when we first moved in one area looked like a mini Jurassic forest. We put two layers of weed membrane under the gravel path, in some places in manages to punch through that but at least it's a 5 minute a week job to just pull up rather than the battle it used to be.


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[snakeshack]

been trying to eradicate from the allotment for 5 years now I find it's leaping into the raised beds like an olympic hurdler,composts well though.

[chris]

That's probably why... That, knotweed and bindweed I don't compost. (too lazy to dry the roots out).

[Nik]

Horsetail is one of the oldest plants in existence - the dinosaurs were chomping on it 100 million years ago. Incredibly successful plants. I'm glad I don't have any on my plot!

[Inastate]

Amazing

Isn't it edible?