Response to a number of posts 1) I gather my own horsetail from the woods. Of course, at a garden scale, I only need a few handfulls, so a quart or so of dried herb is plenty. The North American species is not E. arevense, the European species, but it is very close. You want the species that have vegetative stalks (spore bearing stalks are produced separately in the early spring). Harvest the vegetative stalks and dry in about June.
2) RS talks about horsetail 508 as "pushing back" the etheric when it is too tenuously dispersed. As opposed to oak bark 505 that "pulls back" the etheric. In both cases, this has an anti-fungus effect if the plant is suffering from fungal disease. I don't know what it does for a healthy plant, or actually for the fungus. Steve's observations are very interesting. 3) I have always thought of the prep as providing Si, but in fact, it's more complicated than that. Applied Biodynamics fall 1997 had the following table showing chemical analysis of two preps (wish they had data on more) Concentration of trace minerals, mg/L or ppm Element Valerian Horsetail Ca 307 414 Fe 7.4 0.2 Mg 271 186 Mn 2.1 0.9 P 55 1116 K 2650 888 Si 12 177 Na 3 2 S 144 560 Zn 5.6 0.1 Isn't this interesting? 508 has some Si as expected, but it's really high in P and S, and has fair amounts of Ca and K. Who would have expected that? Meanwhile valerian 507 has lots of K. Ghroman describes horsetail as really a Ca plant that has a lot of Si to balance out the Ca. So what horsetail provides is far more than merely Si. Courtney and Kolisko point out that horsetail tea should be fermented for maximum activity. It gets pretty smelly when you do that, giving off H2S. Now we know why. ========================== Dave Robison
