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If you see spear-like shoots at the edge of a field, segmented, with no green colour, and with a wheat-ear like head, bend down and touch them gently, and a whitish powder cloud will spread in the air. It is the spores of the field horsetail (Equisetum arvense).

In floras the horsetails have a little “flower” sign as any other plant to show its flowering time (for the field horsetail April-May), but it is not really a flowering plant but a cryptogam. The horsetails represent ancient geological eras; they belong to a very old phylum, the fern plants, but get on very well even today.

In summer the field horsetail puts out its summer shoots that look like miniature fir trees. The spring shoots will have died off then.