# Can I backbreed Horsetails Into Tree-Sized Versions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 14, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-backbreed-horsetails-into-tree-sized-versions/449299 "2008-05-14T16:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-backbreed-horsetails-into-tree-sized-versions/449299/1 "2008-05-14T16:18:44Z")
The common horsetails in my garden are only a few inches tall-in carboniferous times, they were as big as trees. Do the modern ones contain the essential genetic material, which would enable them to be as big again? Why has such an (apparently) successful species chosen to evolve to such a small size? As far as i know, these things have no natural enemies-do modern bugs eat them? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-backbreed-horsetails-into-tree-sized-versions/449299/2 "2008-05-14T16:33:34Z")
1. If I remember right, there are living species in tropical America that grow to the height of small trees, though the families of tree-size Sphenopsids from Paleozoic times are now extinct. I suspect climate may have quite a bit to do with it – a warm-year-round, moist, CO[sub]2[/sub]-rich atmosphere would promote growth. Despite the Fens, Boston is not exactly the climate of the Carboniferous swamps. 2. Sphenopsids were successful in competition with Psilophytes, which look for all the world like leafless greenish twigs, and mosses and liverworts, which were not adapted for size. But they lacked some of the essential characteristics that enabled ferns, gymnosperms, and especially angiosperms to dominate the world’s flora in later eras. (Without a good textbook on evolutionary botany at hand, I’ll leave it at that nebulous statement – but ther are some good detailed reasons I don’t recall or have at hand underlying my glittering generality.) 3. They have pegged out a niche for themselves where they can compete, and cling tenaciously to it. One adaptation worth noting is that they use silicon compounds for protection and structural strength. I’m not sure what if anything eats them; I used to notice them as common along railroad tracks in my old hometown, and grasshoppers used to be very prevalent on and around them. Whether that’s a feed-on-them relationship I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-backbreed-horsetails-into-tree-sized-versions/449299/3 "2008-05-14T16:46:29Z")
Grizzly bears and other herbivores eat horsetail. _Equisetum arvense._ [http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/fern/equarv/all.html](http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/fern/equarv/all.html) > [@](#): > > Field horsetail is a common food item consumed by grizzly bears [37]. > On average, field horsetail formed 2.4 to 5.2 percent by volume of the > grizzly bear summer diet in Yellowstone National Park and was ranked > 10th out of 32 food items in amount of consumption [49]. Field > horsetail occurs in the wet meadows, marshes and moist cirque basins > most often visited by grizzly bears in spring [2]. Field horsetail is a > minor to important component in the spring and early summer diet of > black bears [28,32]. It is of low nutritive value [49]. > > Field horsetail is not an important range forage for livestock, and > excessive amounts (more than 20 percent) in hay can cause scours, > paralysis, and death in horses [36]. > PALATABILITY : > Field horsetail is low in palatability to livestock, deer, and elk [39]. _Equisetum sylvaticum._ [http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/fern/equsyl/all.html](http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/fern/equsyl/all.html) > [@](#): > > IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE : > In interior Alaska, horsetails (Equisetum spp.) comprise the largest > component of the spring diet of black bears. Horsetails and blueberries > (Vaccinium spp.) are the two most important plant genera to black bears > in the region [20]. So modern horsetails co-evolved with mammalian herbivores. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-backbreed-horsetails-into-tree-sized-versions/449299/4 "2008-05-14T17:07:41Z")
My first thought on reading the OP was, “How much time do you have?” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-backbreed-horsetails-into-tree-sized-versions/449299/5 "2008-05-14T20:01:22Z")
I wonder how closely related they even are - it could be the same sort of genetic/taxonomic/phylogenetic distance between the tree-horsetails and the modern ones as it is between, say, two modern members of the rose family so the question _might_ be analogous to asking “can I breed apple(or some kind of) trees from strawberry plants?” - to which the answer would be ‘yes, if you’re immortal, and patient’. Trees or tree-like plants have evolved independently many times - so it’s not impossible that it could happen again.