Tree fuzzles
May. 27th, 2006 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serenissimaI moved to this state three years ago, during this same season. Soon after arriving, I was puzzled and delighted to observe bits of fluffy white fuzz floating on the breeze and collecting in small drifts by the side of the road. It looked like snow. It is, in fact, a tiny seed suspended in cottony fibers.
On my walk this morning I was able to get a close look at the plant that grows these seeds. No mere weed, it's a large tree; the one I was looking at had five or six trunks and was at least two stories high, the same height as a big maple. The leaves of the tree are heart-shaped or spade-shaped, and the stems stick out at all angles from the twig they are growing from, like a bottle brush, not making a flat surface like on most tree branches I'm familiar with. Maybe that was just because I was looking at the lower branches. The fluff comes from inside round, beige, blueberry-sized capsules or pods that split open into three lobes. The pods seem to grow in clusters. The fluff is very soft. If I were a small animal with a nest to line, I'd collect plenty of it. :)
Speaking of fuzzy things, I noticed two different groups of goslings grazing in the field there, supervised by adults. I counted one flock: 28 goslings of slightly varying sizes, with just one pair of adults looking after them. I wonder if the pair was parents of all those chicks, or if they were "babysitting?" Goslings' wings are extremely small, considering that they grow to be such an important feature for the adult goose.
Oh, by the way, I've caught up reading LiveJournal. All my webcomics, too. ;p
On my walk this morning I was able to get a close look at the plant that grows these seeds. No mere weed, it's a large tree; the one I was looking at had five or six trunks and was at least two stories high, the same height as a big maple. The leaves of the tree are heart-shaped or spade-shaped, and the stems stick out at all angles from the twig they are growing from, like a bottle brush, not making a flat surface like on most tree branches I'm familiar with. Maybe that was just because I was looking at the lower branches. The fluff comes from inside round, beige, blueberry-sized capsules or pods that split open into three lobes. The pods seem to grow in clusters. The fluff is very soft. If I were a small animal with a nest to line, I'd collect plenty of it. :)
Speaking of fuzzy things, I noticed two different groups of goslings grazing in the field there, supervised by adults. I counted one flock: 28 goslings of slightly varying sizes, with just one pair of adults looking after them. I wonder if the pair was parents of all those chicks, or if they were "babysitting?" Goslings' wings are extremely small, considering that they grow to be such an important feature for the adult goose.
Oh, by the way, I've caught up reading LiveJournal. All my webcomics, too. ;p
