Podlings

Day 300: The milkweed pods are coming right along! I have two areas each supporting half a dozen plants, seed for which came from two different sources. The second area is a year or two younger, and I am fairly sure that group is only going to produce one pod this year. However, the older group may have as many as two dozen. I haven't really taken a count. Once a blossom has been pollinated, the pedicel (the stem of an individual flower in an inflorescence) begins to thicken and curl. Then the ovary starts to swell into a pod which will eventually dehisc (remember your botany vocabulary from a few days ago!) to release dozens of seeds, each attached to a silky pappus. The pappus (a parachute-like structure) aids in wind dispersal of the seeds...and trust me, when you open an envelope of them inside your kitchen without knowing what's inside, "wind dispersal" can apply to the gentle breeze conjured by the slightest physical motion on the part of the unsuspecting recipient. I will be confining these in net bags before they dehisc so that they don't populate the neighbourhood. I am truly excited to have grown my own milkweed pods at last!

We Have Pollination!

Day 291: We have pollination! Yes, my milkweed plants are making pods! And I cannot credit the success to my intervention because the flower I attempted to pollinate by hand is not among those with swelling ovaries. That said, there are at least a dozen strikingly obvious developing pods on the plants which flowered earliest, and I think there will also be some on the plants which came into bloom a little later. It's too soon to tell with those, although it looks like a few of the flower stems are beginning to curl (as opposed to drooping). That was what caught my eye first: one curled, plump flower stem held above a mass of withering flowers. Closer examination revealed an ovary starting to swell, and then as I raised my eyes, I saw this pod, about as big as the end of my thumb! Then I really started peering in among the fading flower clusters, and saw that the pollinators had done the job I'd failed to do. Finally, I'm going to have milkweed pods!