What the gubbins is this?!

[ladylottie]

Seriously though, I too find them impressive, both aesthetically and for other reasons. For example, do you know why this genus no longer "rules" the Earth botanically ? Because of a bacterium.
The cell walls of all plants once used to be composed of lignin, which has the same sort of strength as the cellulose in wood. But until ligniferous bacteria (and I daresay, fungi) came along and had the ability to digest the 30 metre high giants, there was no competitive pressure helping the development of plants with woody stems - ie, modern trees and bushes. (Even now, with the ability to digest lignin widespread in bacteria, if the plant is small enough it is easier for it to make lignin, which is why not all tall weeds have woody stems.)
So every time I see a horsetail, I am reminded - if the ancestors of these little-noticed plants had not had this Achilles heel, our world might still look like the jungles of the dinosaurs...

Sits fascinated...........well you learn something new every day, thanks Snohare

[snohare]

you learn something new every day

The story is not over yet !
Even now, trees have lignin in them, mixed with the cellulose. As dead wood ages, lacking the protective elements such as terpenes and sap in it to fight off the attackers, it goes grey because that is the lignin breaking down. (The technical term is "lignified".) So the reason wood rots, to a large degree, is because the Achilles heel still exists, and when you see a grey piece of wood you know it is doomed by creatures so small you will never see them...can you imagine the wildfires there might be without them ?! (It is believed there were huge, catastrophic wildfires hundreds of millions of years ago, when oxygen levels were higher, and everything was in consequence much more flammable.)
Once you start to think of such enormous spans of time, it just boggles the mind, doesn't it...like the indoor equivalent of looking at the Milky Way.