Horsetail

Did you know that the simple Horsetail - [Equisetum hyemale] has a history from it's deep past which led to the industrialization of human civilization? Well, here is the story.
The first ancestors of this "living fossil" appeared in the Paleozoic Era and were particularly prevalent in the Carboniferous Period and the Pennsylvanian Epoch where thick forests of this species (rising up to 100 feet tall) covered much of what is now North America and Europe. For time reference, this was over 300,000,000 (million) years ago. The carbon laid down by millions of years of these forests became coal fields through geologic processes. A couple hundred years ago, or so, people discovered it's usefulness as an energy source and created the world we humans now live in.
You probably never realized how this humble plant species formed the life we live today when, as a child, you pulled the segments of this reed apart!

This photo was taken by an Asahi Pentax 6 X 7 medium format film camera with a Super-Multi-Coated Takumar/6X7 1:4/200mm lens attached to a #1 Pentax 6X7 Extension Tube (14mm) using Fuji 160NS film, the negative scanned by an Epson Perfection V600 and digitally rendered with Photoshop.