"La Puce" wrote in message
ps.com...
On 18 Aug, 23:48, "shazzbat"
wrote:
Since it's apparently been around since the dinosaurs were top species, I
would suggest that eradicating it is at best an aspiration.

Morning Steve! As Jenny's link from Graham Paul (chemical specialist)
says ... " I now take the philosophical view that if evolution can't
change the Horsetail in 30 million years, I must learn to live with
it". My thoughts entirely. On visiting the lotty yesterday, I've found
a profusion of them in an area. I kept a circle of it and weeded
around it. Looked so lovely that a neighbour asked me what it was not
realising what he was seeing ;o)

Morning to you.

Have you seen that Google earth has been upgraded? I can see your allotment!

Steve

On 19 Aug, 10:33, "shazzbat"
wrote:
Morning to you.
Have you seen that Google earth has been upgraded? I can see your allotment!

I'll check this for sure. We couldn't even see our house because of
the trees and I'll check that too. Keep an eye on the lotty for me -
I've got a sad looking fox living by my shed. Lovely face but scrawny
body and not much of a tail.

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"Emrys Davies" wrote in message
...
My friend no longer has the energy to dig up the roots of Mare's
Tail
and he is wondering if there is a chemical which will effectively
eradicate the menace.

Regards,
Emrys Davies.

Hi Emrys,
Do you mean horse tail or mares tail ?
There is difference...........
http://www.sherriff-amenity.com/technical.asp?newsid=3
Jenny

Hello Jenny,

My friend merely referred to it as Mare's Tail and our conversation
centred on that almost indistructable weed which is the topic of this
thread. A good point though.

Regards,
Emrys Davies.

In article ,
"Emrys Davies" writes:
| "JennyC" wrote in message
| ...
|
| Do you mean horse tail or mares tail ?
| There is difference...........
| http://www.sherriff-amenity.com/technical.asp?newsid=3
|
| My friend merely referred to it as Mare's Tail and our conversation
| centred on that almost indistructable weed which is the topic of this
| thread. A good point though.

Not really. That Web page is talking crap about the name, whether or
not it is sensible in other respects.

Mare's tail can refer to either Equisetum or Hippurus, perfectly
correctly. There is no confusion between the plants and never was,
outside the deluded minds of nomenclatural crusaders.

Some UK botanical dogmatists are trying to force the use of their pet
canonical names for plants, completely ignoring the fact that English
is an imprecise, context-dependent, language defined by its users.
This arose from the obviously erroneous belief that the public was
put off botany by the use of Latin names, so the campaign is to
invent English species names, force their adoption and claim that the
use of the established names that don't match botanical taxonomy are
wrong. Those religious fanatics need to be told to go and stuff
themselves.

If you want to refer to a species or genus, precisely, use the Latin
names. If you want to speak loosely, including when the context
makes the meaning clear, use English. If you can't remember one,
use the other :-) On this newsgroup, we flip between the two with
gay abandon, and it almost never causes any confusion.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
(Nick Maclaren) writes:
|
| | http://www.sherriff-amenity.com/technical.asp?newsid=3
|
| Not really. That Web page is talking crap about the name, whether or
| not it is sensible in other respects.

In case it is confusing, I am not damning that page for making that
error. The reason it is talking crap is that its author has been
taken in by the misinformation provided by the nomenclatural fanatics.
He is clearly unaware that the name mare's tail is a perfectly correct
one for Equisetum, and has probably been led into that delusion by
reading the sort of botany book that dogmatically excludes that fact.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Sacha wrote:

I think I remember someone saying you
could eat it, when we had a similar discussion years ago but I may be wrong,
so don't try it!

Googled around and found no evidence. Maybe you should only eat it
in the severest of famines. There are lots of recipes out there
for using the stuff to make biodynamic teas which either
enhance fungal activity or act as a fungicide depending.
If you've got a heart condition, an ability to read russian
and $9.28, you might find this useful:-
http://www.russianfoods.com/showroom...C6/default.asp

Japanese knotweed is edible though
http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Pla.../Knotweed.html