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Observations of a Naturalist Online Articles about nature - by Boyd Shaffer, artist /naturalist
This Article: Quillworts and Horsetails A look into some of the oldest vascular plants on earth.
Quillworts are usually found growing in wet areas where they are partially submerged for part of the year. Two species are common in costal marshes and are identified by one being larger than the other. The most abundant species, IsIsoetes muricata maritimais, is found in brackish water along our coasts living with Arrow Grasses. Isoetes m. m. appears grass-like but the leaves are stiff and rounded like a quill and rarely more than four inches tall. The taller species, Isoetes truncata, is larger and more common near bogs and other wet areas.           Leaves of quillworts are spoon shaped at their bases, tightly spiraled, and resemble the corms of gladiolas. Attached to the lower part are ligules similar to those found on spike mosses. Having vascular cambium in their corms, they last for many years, making them an important part of the diets of many animals. quillwort horsetail            Geese, cranes, muskrats and in some areas humans, consume large amounts of quillwort corms. In many areas they are available all year long.            Horsetails are also very ancient plants. During the carboniferous period, 300 million years ago, these< and also club mosses, were giants. Great numbers of these giant plants became coal, and to indicate how plentiful they were, one type of coal called, cannel, is composed of nothing but horsetail and club moss spores. Today they rarely reach more than four feet in height. There are a few species that reach heights of 15 ft. or more in some rain forests, and one species in the Redwood Forests of California.            The illustration shows the early spring reproductive growth (A) and the vegetative growth that comes up later (B). The vegetative growth is not capable of reproduction in Equisetum arvense, only the strobilus on the top of (A) produces reproductive spores. Most horsetails have the reproductive and vegetative parts on the same plant.            Horsetails have unique spores that can remain airborne on elaters which remain extended until it encounters fog or rain. The elaters when wet, roll tightly around the spore, causing it to fall to earth. That gives the spores a good chance of landing in suitable wet habitats.            When animals, such as horses, become addicted to eating horsetails they become very ill from lack of vitamin B, and will die if they are not given massive doses of that vitamin and kept permanently away from horsetails. The reason? Horsetails, in large amounts, destroy vitamin B within the body.       -End OBSERVATIONS INDEX

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