Horsetail
Equisetum arvense
Also called Scouring rush, Common horsetail
We do not have a Blackfoot or Cree name for this one yet. Tell us the name and we will add it, with your word on where it comes from.
A jointed hollow-stemmed plant with no true flowers, gritty with silica, used for scouring and polishing. It carries real cautions when taken internally, so it is listed here mainly as a material.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- Horsetail contains an enzyme that breaks down thiamine, and it is known to poison livestock that eat it in quantity. It is not something to drink regularly.
- It also takes up metals from the ground it grows in, so anything gathered near industry, rail lines or old dumps should be left alone.
What it is confused with
Harmful look-alikeMarsh horsetail Equisetum palustre
Several horsetail species grow here and telling them apart takes practice. Marsh horsetail carries higher levels of the compounds that make horsetail unsafe for livestock. This is one of the reasons this plant is best used as a material rather than taken internally.
How to know it
- Stems
- Hollow, ridged and jointed. Each joint pulls apart cleanly, which is how children have always played with it.
- Texture
- Gritty and rough to the touch. That grit is silica, and it is what makes it useful for scouring.
- Green shoots
- Whorls of fine branches at each joint, like a bottle brush or a horse tail.
- Spring shoots
- Pale unbranched shoots topped with a cone appear first, before the green ones, and die back.
The country it grows in
- Riverbanks and willow flats
- Sloughs and wet meadows
- Roadsides and disturbed ground
- Sandy and gravelly ground
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Stems June to September
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Tools and materials
The silica in the stems makes an effective natural abrasive for smoothing wood, horn and bone.
How it is prepared
- Dried and stored
Cut stems and dry them flat. Dried stems keep their grit and are used like fine sandpaper.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.