Water Horsetail - Equisetum fluviatile
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Species Description
Widespread and locally common throughout the UK but less so in the South East. Habitat includes: A wide variety of aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats with a wide range of pH, nutrient levels, substrate type and water depth etc. in places such as ditches, small ponds, large lakes, sheltered rivers. It is often a pioneer species in freshwater successions. Growing habit: Deciduous Perennial. Height: up to 1.5 m. Spores: June to July. Other names include: Swamp Horsetail.
Stace 4:
Equisetum fluviatile L. - Water Horsetail.
Stems to 1.5m, deciduous, smooth to touch, simple or with whorls of branches in middle region, with 10-30 very low ridges; cones on vegetative but shorter and less branched shoots, rounded at apex; 2n=216. Native; ponds, ditches, marshes, backwaters, in or by water, common throughout British Isles.
Key:
- Branches 0, or present but not or sparsely and irregularly branched again; teeth of leaf-sheaths not fused, as many as stem-ridges
- Stem-internodes with central hollow >3/4 as wide as stem, with 10-30 ridges (Usually >20 in stems >8mm wide)