Leighton Photography & Imaging

  • Home
  • Website
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Contact
  • Newsletter
  • How to Download
  • Galleries
    • All Galleries
    • Search
    • Cart
    • Lightbox
    • Client Area
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
x
Botanicals All Galleries
Add to Cart
twitterlinkedinfacebook

Horsetails 6 images Created 25 Jan 2013

Once reaching soaring heights of nearly 100 feet tall, these surviving modern botanical relics of the Paleozoic world are limited to just one genus - Equisetum, and these days horsetails barely attain 3 feet in height.
View: 100 | All

Loading ()...

  • Close-up detail of the ancient giant horsetail. What you see as leaves are actually branches, and the leaves are the tiny dark brown "feathery" structures that are the only part of the plant that does not contain chlorophyll. This one was photographed in Central Washington just south of Olympia.
    Giant Horsetail Closeup
  • Close up of the male stalks of the common horsetail. Widespread across almost all of North America, these unusual plants reproduce by spores - much like that of ferns and mosses.
    Common Horsetail
  • Horsetails have a long history. They were around in the time of dinosaurs, when they grew as tall as trees and grew as great forests, long before flowers had evolved into existence. Somewhat fern-like, they reproduce from spores, and plants will either be the big "leafy" females like these, or a short club-like male.
    Giant Horsetail
  • A dense mass of scouring rushes (also known as horsetails) grow along the shore of Trillium Lake on Mount Hood's Southern face in Oregon. Native tribes have historically used a tea from this plant to treat venereal disease and for use as a diuretic.
    Scouring Rush
  • The common horsetail is found in every province of Canada and every state of the continental United States except for the states of Florida and Louisiana. Pushing this amazing range of terrain, habitat and geography, these brown fertile, spore-bearing male shoots are surrounded by the new growth of their female counterparts. Photographed at the edge of Gold Creek Pond at the top of Washington's Snoqualmie Pass.
    Common Horsetail
  • Horsetails can be found all over the world, but they do share a lot of characteristics. They are found in wet habitats such as swamps, mountain streams, lakesides where to summers are mild. In the United states, this subspecies of Equisetum telmateia is found throughout much of the rainy Pacific Northwest and even in parts of Michigan.
    Giant Horsetail