Trees with Seeds

This time a year it’s easy to spot trees with seeds. Some are very colorful like the magnolias (they remind me a little or red M&Ms)

And the dogwoods.

Others are mostly brown like the golden rain trees

And maples (some trees shed their samaras in the spring…others, like these at Brookside Gardens, wait until the fall)

And red buckeyes with the buckeye nut showing where the mottled brown and green husk has cracked.

Then there are seeds that are still green…that will take more time to mature and dry…ready to be shed next spring. The tulip poplar seed pods are still closed in the fall…the seeds not yet mature. We always accumulate a lot of tulip poplar seeds in our gutters in the spring.

The sycamore seeds will get softer…the balls feeling almost ‘furry’ by the time they break apart dispersing the small seeds in the spring. Each bump on this immature seed ball will become a sycamore seed! When I show tulip poplar and sycamore seeds to preschoolers on spring field trips, they are always awestruck my how small they are compared to the trees!