A Detailed Explanation of the Differences Between Horsetail and Scouring Rush: Are They the Same Species?

The world is full of wonders, and as the saying goes, people can look alike, and so can plants and flowers. In rural areas, many people have seen these two kinds of wild grass, both with stems segmented like bamboo. The plants mentioned above are horsetail and scouring rush, whose appearances are often confused because they both belong to the fern family, sharing slender, segmented stems, and their leaf structures are also very similar, so without careful observation they are often hard to tell apart. So, how can you quickly distinguish them in the flower market?

To tell them apart faster, you can place the two plants side by side. Then you can see that horsetail and scouring rush differ in appearance. The former has rhizomes that rise obliquely, grow upright and creep horizontally, appearing black-brown, with a plant height ranging from about 15 to 50 cm. The latter's rhizomes are mostly dark brown, producing a few yellow fibrous roots, and its plant height may be slightly taller than that of horsetail.

Secondly, although both plants belong to the fern family, they are in different genera. Horsetail belongs to the genus Equisetum in the family Equisetaceae, while scouring rush belongs to the genus Hippochaete in the family Equisetaceae. Horsetail is distributed across various provinces in China, while scouring rush mostly grows in farmland, along roadsides and by water, making it a fairly typical farmland weed with a wider distribution. Furthermore, you can use a magnifying device to observe their differences: horsetail's spore cone is longer, while scouring rush's is relatively shorter.

Finally, horsetail and scouring rush have different medicinal values. Traditional Chinese medicine holds that horsetail has a bitter, neutral nature, mainly used to activate blood circulation and remove blood stasis, promote urination and reduce swelling, with the most common indications being hematemesis, epistaxis, hemafecia, vicarious menstruation, cough and asthma, gonorrhea, etc. Scouring rush's pharmacological effects are mainly heat-clearing, blood-cooling, cough-relieving and diuretic, among others. However, in the wild, do not use scouring rush casually, because the whole plant of this species is toxic, and its use requires a doctor's advice.