Horsetails are
plants of such
ancient ancestry that they belong to a botanical class of their own. They have been used as cleansers from the earliest times as they contain large quantities of
silica from the
soil which is redeposited in their
stems as fine
crystals and makes an ideal cleansing agent. Although
invisible to the
human eye, the crystals are substantial enough to make a horsetail feel like fine
sandpaper if one of them is run through the hand.
Throughout the ages horsetails have been used for a variety of
purposes. Dairymaids used to scour their
milk pails with them and the
North American Indians used them to smooth the shafts of their
arrows.
Knights used them for polishing their
armour, and some watchmakers even used them to give an extra smoothness to the works and casing of their
watches.
Horsetails were eventually given the common name of pewterwork when they began to be used regularly for scouring household pots and pans as a precursor to wire wool.
Common horsetails can be found on poorly drained land between
May and
October and are recognisable by their jointed stems and bristly
fonds.