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The Scouringrush horsetail (Equisetum praealtum) belongs to Equisetaceae (the Horsetail family). It is a perennial fern that is distributed in North America and northeastern Asia. It grows in ponds, wetlands, riverbanks, and other riparian areas, and grows 1.5 to 2 m tall. The stems are erect and form large, dense colonies. The stems have conspicuous nodes, each of which is surrounded by a ring of small, dark, triangular, scale-like leaves. These stems have both sexual and asexual buds, which reproduce by means of sporangia that form at the tips of the sexual stems. It used to be widely treated as a subspecies or variety of "Dutch rush" (Equisetum hyemale). In Chinese, it is called "無瘤木賊" (wu liu mu zei).
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