So yes, these look like hollow, dead little sticks, but even though the tops can be brown, they will root if you put them in water and keep them in water. Later, when they start getting roots you can chop off the brown part above one of the nodes.These are deceiving if you don’t have experience with them and you can feel defeated before you start because they seem to be already dead and hollow. They aren’t.Unless you can see all the way through, there’s a portion at the very bottom that will absolutely root. I think mine took a couple weeks to start seeing little white nodes/roots starting. If you are going to remove them from the water and plant them I would make sure you’ve got quite an established root system. Make sure they’re going into very sandy media. Something sandy with tiny bits of lava rock works well.If you need instant gratification with plants and propagations, this wouldn’t be for you.Knowing what I know, I actually don’t think the price is bad and I think it’s equivalent to the price of a small established plant.I will take some photos and add them to my review. I’ve got these growing in large pond on my property and also a 150 gallon indoor pond.