I want to say thanks to Mother Nature for some of the miniature miracles she creates. My long-haired cat, Tim, brings me examples every day (inadvertently). Here's one:
The entire object is about 1.25 inch from top to bottom, and is beautifully designed to disperse and then plant the seed of some weed. I've no idea what weed, but it appears to be very successful - I've found these all over the property. The seed itself is inside the arrowhead shape at the tip; the remainder of the structure is like a tiny auger, which buries itself in loose soil (or the dense undercoat of cats). Each movement just plants it deeper. The spiraling stem (which looks like a double spiral because of the shadow cast by the camera flash) is as perfect as anything I've seen coming off DH's lathe.
3 comments:
Happy Thanksgiving, Sandra! This looks like a filaree seed http://www.hastingsreserve.org/nativegrass/NonNative.html#Erodium
They have nice purple flowers in the summer but the seeds are not so nice when they get into ur sox!
When I first saw the photo, I thought this was some sort of esoteric weaving tool you were going to tell us about!
It is an amazing reproductive delivery system!
Hi, Karen,
I think you're right! The photo on the website you referenced is spot on. And I'm finding this seed in "disturbed" land, because the builder had to do a lot of grading to make a flat place for the house on a fairly steep slope. Thanks for solving the "who?" part of the story.
-- Sandra
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