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HorsetailMarshesoftheNewZealandJurassicMikePole

MikePole

April 3, 2016 / comment 0 / Edit

HorsetailMarshesoftheNewZealandJurassic
In the Jurassic, New Zealand had horsetails (Latin: Equisetum) an odd-looking plant , a bit like a long
brush with whorls of narrow leaves and are related to ferns. Apart from their shape some of the
extinct forms had a strange diaphram attached to their stems that contained the spores (see the
featured image. The wheel-like object to the right is a diaphram, and to the left is a whorl of leaves.
From the Jurassic of the Otara coast). But today, New Zealand is remarkable as one of the few
landmasses not to have native horsetails. Somewhere along the line they became extinct. Australia,
some of the Paci c islands, and more-understandably,Antarctica, are the other areas where they are
now naturally absent.

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HorsetailMarshesoftheNewZealandJurassicMikePole

Living Equisetum, Sichuan, China. About 15 cm

high.

Jurassichorsetails were reported from near Gore by Newell Arber (1917) in the one of the most
detailed reports of New Zealands plant fossils. Then, in 1934, Edwards reported that the Rev. J.E.
Holloway found Equisetum fossils from a roadside cutting about half a mile inland from Curio Bay. I
looked for this site back in the early 80s, and although there was a road cut with nice plant fossils at
about this location, it did not have horsetails. At least, I never found any. However, I was more lucky at
some locations along the Otara coastline and on the Owaka River, a plant fossil site that Arber
knew about, but never found Equisetum.

A mudstone bedding surface covered with fossil

Equisetum from the Jurassic of the Owaka River,
New Zealand. Scale is about 50 mm across image.

Look at any reconstruction of dinosaurs, and if they are wallowing in a wetland, there are probably
horsetails there. They are generally associated with wettish conditions, often with shallow standing
water. The Jurassic fossil Equisetum Ive collected are often in beds by themselves in muddy rock. This
suggests they grew in mono-speci c stands in quiet marshes. Probably in slightly better drained
habitats, they gave way to taller vegetation, such as the Cladophlebis tree-ferns. And in even better
drained situations, there was actual conifer forest, such as the Curio Bay fossil forests.

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HorsetailMarshesoftheNewZealandJurassicMikePole

A fossil whorl of Equisetum leaves from the New

Zealand Jurassic.

Why did horsetails become extinct in New Zealand? Good question. It surely wasnt because it got
too cold. Today Equisetum grows in the McKenzie River delta, where they are associated with
permafrost. And though I think New Zealand went through a dry phase, I doubt if it got that dry.
Research by paleobotanist Carole Gee has indicated that horsetails would have been one of the
preferred foods of the sauropod dinosaurs. Equisetum is also well-adapted to re-growing from
underground rhizomes, if it isdamaged by browsing, or especially in the case of sauropods by the
stomping of very big feet. Perhaps the extinction of dinosaurs tipped the balance against horsetails in
New Zealand?
And it;s not as if they cant grow in New Zealand today. Though we dont have native horsetails,
introducedEquisteumhavenow become a certi ed weed!
References
Links will take you to a downloadable pdf:
Arber, E.A.N., 1917. The Earlier Mesozoic Floras of New Zealand. New Zealand Geological Survey
Bulletin 6, 1-80.
Edwards, W.N., 1934. Jurassic plants from New Zealand. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 10,
81-109.
Gee, C.T., 2011. Dietary options for the sauropod dinosaurs from an integrated botanical and
paleobotanical perspective, in: Klein, N., Remes, K., Gee, C.T., Sander, P.M. (Eds.), Biology of the
Sauropod Dinosaurs: Understanding the Life of Giants. Indiana University Press, pp. 34-56.
POLE, M.S. (1998). Structure of a near-polar latitude forest from the New Zealand Jurassic.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoecology, Palaeoclimatology 147, 121-139.
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POLE, M.S. (2001). Repeated ood events and fossil forests at Curio Bay (Middle Jurassic), New
Zealand. Sedimentary Geology 144, 223-242.
POLE, M. (2009): Vegetation and climate of the New Zealand Jurassic. GFF: 131-1: 105-111.
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