01-02-2004, 11:18 PM
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mares tail
The message
from (Karin) contains these words:
Is it OK to put Mares Tail on a compost heap? I thought that it would
be OK because the heap would get hot enough to kill the seeds, but my
friend disagrees - she thinks they'll survive & then be spread when
the compost is put on the ground.
Any advice,please?
Step carefully!
Mare's tail / marestail = Hippuris vulgaris and is a (fairly) stagnant
water plant.
Do you mean marestail or horse tail? (Though the two names overlap in
certain areas of the country, just to confuse things.)
Horse tail = Equistium (various species) allied to ferns. These don't
have seeds, but spores. I believe the spores are borne on special stems
which appear early in the year, before the foliage, and the actual
'bottlebrush' of the normal stems won't have spores.
Personally, I'd burn them, just in case. They can be sprayed with
glyphosate to which some detergent has been added. It works even better
if you have bruised the greenery by walking or stamping on it first.
Several applications will be required as the roots can go down eight
feet. In areas where there is gold, significant quantities can be
recovered by cutting horsetails and burning them, and refining the ash.
I can't remember where I read that - or heard it, but I've never been
able to test the intelligence in the forty or more years I've had it in
the back of my mind. Either there is a plethora of horsetail and a lack
of gold in the area, or a fair amount of dispersed gold, but no sign of
horsetails.
--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
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