A Seedy Post

O.K. it's not what you think.  Well, maybe it is... You do realize that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants, right?  We seem to be fascinated by plant sex.   Why is it that we are so fascinated by flowers?  Why are we attracted to floral fragrances?  I get that insects, bats, and birds are attracted to blooms because of the nectar but what evolutionary purpose would human attraction to fragrance serve?  Found a couple of interesting thoughts here and here . One of my favorite and oft quoted lines comes from Michelle at Garden Porn, "Is that a pistil in your calyx or are you just happy to see me?"

The following  shows the result of unprotected plant sex in a factual and explicit manner.  You have been warned.

This summer, one of my brugmansia 'Charles Grimaldis' bloomed it's everloving head off.  It was in a plant stand that made it look much taller than it really was but it was magic to walk beneath those large golden fragrant trumpets!  I noticed that a seed pod was forming on a branch that was out of reach and being too lazy to haul out a ladder or pull the plant down for this single operation, I left the pod.  A few days ago, I removed the plant from the outside stand to bring it inside for the winter and decided to remove the pod. I probably should have let it stay on longer to ripen the seeds but I wasn't thinking about that, just wanted to explore the seed pod.  One of the  differences between daturas and brugmansias is the shape of their seed pods.  Those of datura resemble spiky horse chestnut seed pods or medieval flails while brugmansias look alittle like long okra and are smooth.

Because I'm so selfish, I plucked the thing without thinking of you at all.  It wasn't until after I twisted it open to discover what the contents looked like that I thought that maybe y'all might like a peek, too.  The pictues show it smushed back together, sorry I'm such a pig.

And now pulled apart.  For many of you, this may be old news but I'd never seen brugsmansia seeds before so it was kind of fun for me.  I'm easily entertained.

Do these seeds look like brains?    Maybe the darker ones have matured enough to be viable?  Could be fun to start brugs from seed and see what happens.  Have you ever tried?

I hope this post wasn't too jarring to the more refined and genteel  among us. 

 

My thoughts are with all who are affected by the damage caused by Sandy!