Anyone know what these are?

A friend took this pic but doesn't know what it could be:cnfs: Wondering if anyone here can enlighten us please?

 

I think they are horse tails.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum

 

Thanks Pete, another one solved!

 

I hope you haven't got it Lil, cos once you have, you'll struggle to get rid of it. I know it's an ancient plant that the dinosaurs are supposed to have feasted on but the roots go down metres and it's incredibly invasive. Perhaps someone has a suggestion on how to eradicate it. It comes up in a big garden I look after and there seems to be more and more every year.

Chris

 

No I haven't got it, thank goodness! My friend took the pic whilst out walking in Oxfordshire.
I did have 'Mares Tail' years ago in another house, and it was a complete nightmare. It broke through the new tarmac drive and even came up through the floorboards in one room.
We were told then that it's virtually impossible to get rid of, as the roots go so deep. I'm so glad I don't have that problem just now.
I don't remember it looking like in the pic though.......maybe I didn't notice it in that stage of growth.

 

I only learnt when googling that "horse tails" and "mares tails" are two very different plants.

 

I've been googling too and just read the same thing shiney, although I'd been led to believe Mares Tail and Horse tail were the same plant.

In our last house I remember it being like the pic on the left of the HorseTail pics in this link.

http://www.sherriff-amenity.com/technical.asp?newsid=3

 

We have these growing on our allotments and I think this is the spore stage,then the proper xmas tree green growth comes later,I found some in front of the door to one of our sheds this afternoon and as I brushed it with my gloved hand the spores started to fall from the top part and drifted off with the breeze:(

A friend of ours is a retired Ordinance Surveyor and he told us years ago that one of his colleagues found roots that had gone down over 40ft when he was working on one of his surveying jobs.The only thing that I know of that kills the stuff is sheep.The chap on the plot opposite us had it all over his plot{that's how it spread over to our plot}but after he got a few sheep on the land afetr he had grassed it over the sheep nibbled the grass and the plants and eventually it all died off:D

We only have a small patch but have tried loads of things to get rid of it but it still keeps coming back:(