Well Heck, Two Mysteries Solved

So Jayne had a flash back (waaaaaay back) when she saw my post from yesterday, with the mystery seedpod. The memory involves a Christmas ornament she made in school. She did some snooping online and found she was right; it is that of the milkweed. Above is the showy milkweed, flower form. I took the photo June '08 in the S. Hills.

This is a seedpod photo I took in late Aug. '07 near Cascade Falls. Jayne sent me the link to an Audubon mag. blog about the milkweed, and it included photos of the pod when it has burst open to release the seeds inside...some serious bells went off in the back of my pea brain...

And here we have a photo I took in Sept. '08 in the E Hills that I'd forgotten about! This is a milkweed pod that has split open and released all but these two seeds...it was a very windy day and they were barely hanging on...moments later they did blow away.

Tidbit from the Audubon site: The milkweed helped save the lives of American sailors and pilots on the Pacific front during World War II. With the supply of kapok from East India cut off, the Navy turned to milkweed silk to stuff life jackets. It was a good substitute. Those silk strands are hollow and coated with a waterproof waxlike substance. So the government encouraged farmers to plant milkweed seeds and paid schoolchildren to fill onion bags with pods collected from roadsides and fields, paying them 20 cents a sack, which bought a lot of bubblegum or sodapop in those days.