Horsetails and club mosses are found in any natural community. A prerequisite for their growth is high soil moisture. Therefore, on the banks of reservoirs, in swamps, in damp meadows and in forests, club mosses, like horsetails, can prevail among other herbaceous vegetation. But what is the significance of horsetail in human life and how did people learn to use this group of plants?
Features of horsetails
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. Varieties inhabiting regions with a tropical climate, of course, are large.
Horsetails are difficult to confuse with other herbaceous plants. Their shoots consist of internodes and nodes, due to which a kind of stem grows, consisting of segments. It is designed to perform the main function in plant life - photosynthesis.
The underground part of horsetails also has a jointed structure. The rhizome easily breaks in the part where the nodes are located, giving the opportunity for the birth of young shoots. It is for this reason that horsetails quicklypopulate territories in which there are favorable conditions for their growth.
Besides vegetative 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, thanks to which horsetails avoid mechanical damage. The plant is not eaten by insects, mollusks, or vertebrates. At first glance, it may seem that the importance of horsetail in human life is also small. But it turns out that is not the case at all.
From the past of plants
The forests of the Carboniferous period mainly consisted of giant club mosses, ferns and horsetail plants. It was thanks to them that the primary layers of the soil began to form. This is a special education, without which further life on the planet could not have modern forms.
The value of horsetail in human life and in nature is very high. These green giants once performed the work of saturating the Earth's atmosphere with oxygen. The life of all creatures on the planet today depends on its sufficient content in the composition of the air.
The importance of horsetails and club mosses in human life can be understood if you know that such a mineral as coal is also a product of the vital activity of these plants. Deposits of a valuable combustible substance were found precisely in those places where horsetails, club mosses, and ferns raged billions of years ago, which in those distant times had not only herbaceous, but alsotree forms.
Horsetails in human life
Species of these plants, being representatives of the modern fauna, are mainly defined by man as weeds with poisonous properties. It is known that in pastures where horsetail is found, cases of poisoning of pets with this plant are possible.
It can be fatal if consumed accidentally. For this reason, hay meadows, where horsetail began to settle, are gradually ceasing to be used for their intended purpose.
Today, the importance 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. Traditional healers also find horsetail widely used.
Types of horsetails
The evolutionary path that horsetails have traveled is very long. It is a 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 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 opportunities for their use is the main task of scientists. Research is carried out not only in the laboratory, but also through experiments and observations in nature. Now it has been proven that horsetails belonging to the second group have high fodder qualities. The same can be said about some types of plants of the first group. They are eaten by cattle, wild boars, deer, horses.
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, as its use may become much wider in the near future.
