Horsetails and cocks are found in any natural community. An indispensable condition for their growth is increased soil moisture. Therefore, on the banks of water bodies, in marshes, on wet meadows and in forests, plunds, like horsetails, can prevail among other grassy vegetation. But what is the significance of horsetail in human life and how did people learn to use this group of plants?
Horsetail Features
Modern species of this plant are very modest in size. Growing in the temperate latitudes of the northern hemisphere, horsetails reach a height of sixty centimeters to one meter. The species inhabiting regions with a tropical climate, of course, are large.
Horsetail is difficult to confuse with other
herbaceous plants. Their shoots consist of internodes and nodes, due to which a peculiar stem consisting of segments grows. It is intended to fulfill the main function in plant life - photosynthesis.
The joint structure also has the underground part of horsetails. The rhizome is easily broken in the part where the nodes are, giving birth to young shoots the opportunity. It is for this reason that horsetails quickly populate territories in which there are favorable conditions for their growth.
In addition to the vegetative method of propagation, plants are able to spread by spores. The shoot on which they ripen appears only once - in the spring.
Silica accumulates in all cells of the plant organism, due to which horsetails avoid mechanical damage. The plant is not eaten either by insects, or by mollusks, or by vertebrates. At first glance, it may seem that the value of horsetail in human life is also small. But it turns out that this is not so.
From past plants
The forests of the Carboniferous period mainly consisted of giant clowns, ferns and horsetail plants. Thanks to them, primary soil layers began to form. This is a special formation, without which further life on the planet could not have modern forms.
The value of horsetail in human life and in nature is very great. These green giants at one time carried out work to saturate the Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen. The life of all the creatures of the planet depends on its sufficient content in the
composition of air .
The importance of horsetails and pods in human life can be understood if one knows what a mineral like coal is also a vital product of these plants. Deposits of valuable combustible matter were discovered precisely in those places where horsetails, plunders, and ferns were rampant billions of years ago, which in those days were not only grassy, but also tree-like.
Horsetail in human life
The species of these plants, being representatives of the modern fauna, are mainly defined by humans as weeds having toxic properties. It is known that in pastures where horsetails are found, cases of poisoning of domestic animals by this plant are possible.
Inadvertent use can be fatal. For this reason, hay meadows, where horsetail began to settle, gradually cease to be used for its intended purpose.
Today, the value of horsetail in human life is quite important only in the field of pharmacology. The plant is used in the production of diuretics and hemostatic drugs. Folk healers also find horsetail widely used.
Types of Horsetail
The evolutionary path that horsetails have traveled is very long. Proven fact that this is one of the oldest plants on Earth. Today, there are several of its species - meadow, field, forest, wintering, marsh, riverine. Only a small number of species can be added to this list.
Sometimes in the modern classification all horsetails are divided into two groups. The first includes forest, riverine, meadow, swamp, field. The second group includes branched, polychaete, reed, wintering.
Modern research on the properties of horsetail
The study of the chemical composition of plants of both groups and the search for possibilities of their use is the main task of scientists. Research is carried out not only by laboratory means, but also through experiments and observations in nature.
At present, it has been proven that horsetails belonging to the second group have high fodder qualities. The same can be said of some species of plants of the first group. Cattle, wild boars, deer, horses eat them.
It turns out that under the influence of certain temperatures, the percentage and composition of the chemical elements of plant parts change. In connection with the latest scientific data, there is a need to reconsider the importance of horsetail in human life, since its use in the near future may become much wider.