A species from the deep past
Introduction
The photograph on this page of A species from the deep past by Martyn Gorman as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
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A species from the deep past
Image: © Martyn Gorman Taken: 21 Apr 2011
The common horse-tail, Equisetum arvense, is an ancient species of plant whose ancestors were browsed by dinosaurs. Modern horsetails are only a few centimetres high but their ancestors included tree-like species up to 200 feet in height living in the Carboniferous forests. They all evolved long before the flowering plants came along and they produce spores rather than seeds. Horsetails grow in moist, rich soils in all parts of the world except Australasia. Some, including ours, produce two kinds of shoots. The first shoots to emerge in the spring are the reproductive squad and are topped with cone-like clusters of spore capsules. These are the ones in the photograph. In a couple of weeks time they will be replaced with green shoots whose role in life will be photosynthesis, growth and replenishing the energy stores.
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Image Location
Latitude
57.376882
Longitude
-1.904531