Definition of "equisetum" []

• See horsetail. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "To reduce the size of the spleen, the Greek athletes used certain beverages, the composition of which was not generally known; the Romans had a similar belief and habit Pliny speaks of a plant called equisetum, a decoction of which taken for three days after a fast of twenty-four hours would effect absorption of the spleen."
• "And there began a growth of rushes and equisetum and potamogeton that ended only with the drying of the pond."
• "Over the meadows spread the regular Chinese-pagodas of the equisetum, (horsetail or scouring-rush,) and the rich coarse vegetation of the veratrum, or American hellebore."