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Monday, November 18, 2013

Macro Monday {Fluffy Seeds}

On the first of November, I was outside with Dan messing around. I believe this was during the time work on the garage conversion was halfway done and I was out there taking a few pictures of the progress. In the midst of taking pictures, I looked down and discovered this:

{To see a larger image, go here.}

Needless to say, I was puzzled. I initially thought it was clumps of fur that a dog or some critter had lost due to an injury or such. I called Dan over because I was not sure about exploring what this was and he is braver, much braver, than I. In the meantime, I switched to using my macro (lens).

By the way, I had to shield these from the harsh sun with my own body or otherwise they would look like this:

{To see a larger image, go here.}

I kept this image because I thought it was a cool looking macro in spite of the strands looking like nylon and fake. Anyway, Dan was helping me out by holding seeds for me. This is what the seed really looked like:

{To see a larger image, go here.}

After pawing and digging around in the ground, much to our amazement, this was found underneath the clusters of seeds:

{To see a larger image, go here.}

The fluffy seed dispersal system.

This is fairly big -- about three to four inches in length. I have absolutely no clue to what this plant is. I have already used up my bandwidth allocation for this period; so, I did not go deep into research. Hopefully, someone else can identify this for me.

Once pictures were taken, we put it back in the ground where it was found. I have always been the one who tries to leave nature alone with the exception of the Black Widows.

Edited to Add: Dan found out that they are milkweed seeds. When I learned of this, I immediately went out to see if I can find some seeds to plant and found a total of seven! Hurray! I now will need to seek how and where to plant them here not to mention protecting them. The Monarch Butterflies relies upon these for a source of food AND a place of laying their eggs. To read more about this, go here.

8 comments:

  1. Beautiful shots of the silky contents of those milkweed pods.

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  2. Those are so cool!! I love discoveries like that, especially when they turn into a photo op.

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  3. Beautiful photos, I like this fruits.

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  4. It is milkweed...gorgeous captures...so detailed!!

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  5. Oh how lovely! Thanks for sharing the love up-close with I Heart Macro:-)

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