HERBS VERTIBÓ 5 - HORSETAIL

Container with about 100g.

Botanical description:
Equisetum arvense, the Field Horsetail, Oblivion Horsetail or Common Horsetail, is a herbaceous perennial plant, 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.
Fertile shoots, in late April.
The sterile stems are 10-90 cm tall and 3-5 mm diameter, with jointed segments around 2-5 cm long with whorls of side shoots at the segment joints; the side shoots have a diameter of about 1 mm. Some stems can have as many as 20 segments. The fertile stems are succulent-textured, off-white, 10-25 cm tall and 3-5 mm diameter, with 4-8 whorls of brown scale leaves, and an apical brown spore cone 10-40 mm long and 4-9 mm broad.
It has a very high diploid number of 216 (108 pairs of chromosomes)

Applications and effect:
It has good astringent and diuretic qualities. It is hemostatic. Strengthening properties of lungs, heart and kidneys.The plant contains several substances which can be used medicinally. It is rich in the minerals silicon (10%), potassium, and calcium. The buds are eaten as a vegetable in Japan and Korea in spring time. All other Equisetum species are toxic. In polluted conditions[citation needed], it may synthesize nicotine. Externally it was traditionally used for chilblains and wounds.

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