Spreading Seeds a Fur Piece

I’ve posted similarly in the past about my utter amazement at the number of local plants that have the potential to have their seeds carried literally miles away from the parent plant by the fur and feathers of animals; or in our case the fur of Feather, our borrowed neighbor dog.

The caveat from the plants point of view is that it operates on the chance that a passing animal will come in contact with its seeds. If so, the plant can do the rest.

Our list so far this summer includes bedstraw, agrimonia (pictured above), geum, bidens, hackelia (Virginia Stickseed) and common burdock, as well as desmodium (ticktrefoil) pictured below. There are other tiny hard black seeds yet to be identified that are perhaps the worst of the lot for getting out of Feather’s fur.

On Sunday, for those of you who will join me for the first and probably only Goose Creek Afield event, I am thinking about dragging an old towel through the uncut end of the pasture for fifty feet and then see what we “catch.” Should be interesting.