Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess what is pictured in photo #1?
The answer to last week’s mystery is a sycamore seed ball, Platanus occidentalis, pictured in photo #2.
The sycamore seed ball, Platanus occidentalis, is one of the most recognizable Winter features of this towering native tree. These round, fuzzy spheres hang from bare branches long after the leaves have fallen, often persisting through the cold months before breaking apart in late Winter or early Spring.
Each seed ball is actually a cluster of many tiny fruits, called achenes, packed tightly together. As they mature in Fall, the ball slowly dries and begins to loosen. When it finally breaks apart, hundreds of lightweight seeds, each equipped with fine brown hairs, drift away on the wind or water and scatter across the landscape like botanical confetti.
Sycamores are monoecious, producing separate male and female flowers on the same tree in Spring, but they rely on the wind for pollination. Their seeds germinate quickly, often within days, especially in moist, sunny, disturbed soils. With mature trees producing vast numbers of seeds, sycamores are well equipped to colonize open areas along rivers, floodplains, and stream banks, continuing their legacy wherever sunlight and water meet.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.
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