Thanks, Mark, for mentioning the milkweed pods (in yesterday's comments). I'd forgotten about these pics I'd taken earlier. They're not from my "walk", but they were taken during the "golden hour" another evening.
For those of you who don't know, this is what milkweed seeds look like in the pod. These happen to be exposed because I'd run over the pod with the lawn mower (the plant was leaning over onto the ground).
The pod contains all those seeds, and when it opens on its own, the seeds get blown around on this silky, fluffy stuff, and they spread far and wide.
The above photo was from another pod hit by the mower, and I took it only to show the pretty "fluff". When a pod opens naturally, each seed floats around in the air via its own bit of fluff, not in a big clump like that.
Incidentally, if you look VERY CLOSELY at that above pic, in the bottom right quadrant, you will see a super-tiny pinkish star-shaped flower. Cool, huh? I didn't even notice it until I was editing the photo.
Back to the milkweed seeds... here's a size comparison for you:
They look rather golden in that sunlight, too, don't they?
3 comments:
We used to love playing with milkweed pods. We would try to get them to float in the air as they would naturally. It drove my dad nuts! I'm sure he was just imagining all the milkweeds he'd have to deal with in his fields the following spring!
The thing I remember about the Milk Weed seeds was the white fuzz was very soft and smooth especially when we first opened a new pod. It was almost like they had lanolin feeling to them. This was in such contrast to the Milk Weed itself. If you broke a leaf off or broke the stem try to pull it out the "milk" was extremely sticky and hard to wash off. Then the seeds were so soft just fun to run through your fingers and throw them in the air. Then listen to our father yell about spreading the seeds. Kris you reminded me of those scoldings but to me I didn't understand the big deal because it was us kids who had to pull and clean them up in the soybeans. So it was worth the pleasure to feel the silk and watch them float.
Hey, I love hearing your stories! :)
Post a Comment