Plants Poisonous to Livestock

Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) Horsetail is a perennial reproducing by spores and creeping rhizomes. The rhizomes are attached to tiny underground tubers. The plant has two forms; vegetative and reproductive. The vegetative form produces shoots which can reach up to two feet tall. The shoots are jointed, and have whorled branches at each joint. Branches are jointed and look somewhat like a coarse elongated pine needle. The plant resembles a small evergreen tree. The reproductive form is a rush-like plant. Shoots are hollow, jointed, branchless and leafless with a toothed sheath at each node. The fruiting heads contain masses of tiny pale greenish spores in a pine cone-like structure.

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