Equisetum ramosissimum Branched Horsetail D I?
This is a strange site for one of Britain's rare plants. The Branched Horsetail is plentiful amongst the shrubs and untended land which borders a small park used as a playing field by a Catholic College. The straggly nature of this plant is such that it appears amongst all the other vegetation and overflows onto the pavement. You can even make out its presence on Google Earth. I wonder if they know that as a protected plant they aren't actually allowed to weed it out?
The other oddity about this plant as that there are very few sites for it in the British Isles yet it is a parent of two hybrid Horsetails including Equisetum x moorei in Ireland and Equisetum x meridionale on Anglesey. Stace thinks it is probably introduced but it is a Schedule 8 species in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
There are only four known sites for this plant: two are in Somerset, one in Lincolnshire and one in south Wales.
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| Equisetum ramosissimum Branched Horsetail |
South side of Ellenborough Park, Weston Super-mare 24th September 2010
Added on 18th October 2010