Spores with rhizome roots. These bamboo-looking shoots are in a moist roadside ditch along East Burns Valley Road. They are from a plant called horsetails, which have been around 300 million years. Horsetails reproduce by spores and spread by rhizome roots that can sink four feet. Pioneers called them “scouring plants,” using the fibrous stems to scour pots and pans. Image: Andy Frank