A taste of spring as autumn arrives.
"Only in springtime, it seemed, does gravity work backward here,
the dandelion pollen rising in great squalls,
the flower buds shooting up, further from the ground,
as if pulled by the sky's sudden need for them..."
Love this idea of gravity working backwards.
There's also something beguiling about the
fragile delicacy of pollen and flower buds,
opposing the power of gravity.
It makes me think of dandelion
and milkweed "fluff" rising up
with their cargo of seed at this time of year,
letting the energy of the wind deposit them
wherever they land.
This piqued my curiosity: Other plants that disperse seeds on fluff, similar to dandelions and milkweed, include cattails, cottonwood trees, asters, thistles, goldenrods, willows, and salsify.
These plants, often in the aster family (Asteraceae), develop a fluffy, parachute-like structure called a pappus that catches the wind, allowing their seeds to be carried to new locations.
I got a wee taste of what it must feel like for the fluff and the seeds
to be picked up and taken away just off the coast of Ireland in Kerry recently.
I was holding onto fence posts for dear life as the mighty wind threatened to carry me aloft!!
Namaste'
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