​Smooth Scouring Rush, Smooth Horsetail,Equisetum laevigatum,Horsetail Family (Equisetaceae)

Found in moist, open areas, river banks
Seen in July by the Rio Chama

Scouring Rushes are not Rushes; they are Horsetails, which are prehistoric organisms that thrived 400 million years ago during the Paleozoic era. They grow from one to four feet tall with a ridged, hollow, bamboo-like stem. The leaves are reduced to tiny, dark teeth fused into a sheath around the joints of the stem; teeth are usually shed during the growing season. It produces spores, rather than seeds, from flowers in pine cone-like heads. Native Americans had many uses for the plant. The stems were used to do the final polishing of wooden spoons and to polish the soft rock used for pipe bowls, to give medicine to babies and used by children as whistles. It was given to thin, old horses with diarrhea after eating fresh grass in spring. It was used medicinally as a contraceptive; to stimulate the kidneys; to treat bladder ailments, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure, venereal diseases, backaches, and colds; also used as an insecticide for washing hair and to treat parts of the body affected by poison ivy. Source.
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