Horsetail

[hawrs-teyl] /ˈhɔrsˌteɪl/

noun
1.
Also called scouring rush. any nonflowering plant of the genus Equisetum, having hollow, jointed stems.
2.
a horse’s tail formerly used as a Turkish military standard or as an ensign of a pasha, the number of tails increasing with the rank.
/ˈhɔːsˌteɪl/
noun
1.
any tracheophyte plant of the genus Equisetum, having jointed stems with whorls of small dark toothlike leaves and producing spores within conelike structures at the tips of the stems: phylum Sphenophyta
2.
a stylized horse’s tail formerly used as the emblem of a pasha, the number of tails increasing with rank
n.

c.1400, from horse (n.) + tail (n.). As a kind of plant, from 1530s.
horsetail
(hôrs’tāl’)
A member of a genus, Equisetum, of seedless vascular plants having a jointed hollow stem and narrow, sometimes much reduced leaves. Plants extremely similar to modern horsetails are known from fossils 300 million years old. The horsetails are the last surviving members of the phylum Sphenophyta, which dominated the forests of the Devonian and Carboniferous periods.