Reflections in nature: Colorful flower arrangements | News, Sports, Jobs

Throughout spring, summer and autumn, the plant world has spoiled us with a colourful display of flowers. In March, the skunk cabbage blossomed first, and now the asters are blooming until the severe frost in October.

We've had a nearly perfect year for wildflowers. While the beauty of wildflowers brings us much joy, flowers also have the job of stimulating seed production, which ensures the future of the plant itself.

Each seed contains a plant ready to produce a new generation the following year. These seeds come in all sizes and shapes and in a number of different container types. The goal is to get away from the mother plant and find a suitable place for it to germinate and grow the following year.

Seed dispersal is the only individual process in the life cycle of plants. All other processes are standardized, regardless of the plant species. Each plant has its own mechanisms of seed dispersal that suit its needs.

Seeds travel many routes to their new home. Some travel long distances, others short distances. Some plants use animals to disperse their seeds. After an animal eats a seed, it later passes through its digestive system. Some seeds must pass through an animal's digestive system to germinate.

Another method of seed dispersal is wind. Trees such as maple, ash and basswood have seeds with wings that act like propellers, allowing the seeds to fly to new locations. The seeds of milkweed, dandelions and cattails are attached to a fine down that catches the slightest breeze and flies away. Other seeds use water to disperse their seeds.

The most famous floating seed is probably the coconut, which can cross vast oceans and germinate even after more than a year in salt water.

The seeds of Himalayan balsam and witch hazel plants explode and fly away from the mother plants like rockets. Then there are Spanish needles, burdock and staghorn plants, whose seeds have either spines or hooks that catch on the fur and feathers of passing animals. Eventually the seeds fall off in new places.

I'm sure everyone has walked in a field and spotted burdock. The burdock plant has a seed dispersal system that can be found almost anywhere where conditions are favorable for its survival.

The seed of a plant contains a miniature flower and a leaf of itself. The seeds are released with food so that they can use any outside influences to stay alive and moving. Nuts and acorns are used by squirrels; berries and grains by birds; hooked or sticky seeds by furry animals; rain, rivers or seas, and wind are also used. Plants with extremely oily seeds (ghostworts) are favored by ants, which carry the seeds to a new home.

A man named George de Mestral developed a new way to fasten or hook our clothes, shoes, and other items: Velcro. I'm sure he made a pretty penny from his invention. However, if you look at the burdock plant, you'll see that nature had its own Velcro, and it's been around for much longer than de Mestral's famous fastener.

If you examine the burdock sticker under a magnifying glass, you will find small hooks that can stick to almost anything. If you pry this sticker open, you will find seeds inside. Try to count the number of seeds in the sticker, and then count the number of stickers on a plant. You will find that one burdock plant produces up to 40,000 seeds. The burdock plant is considered a weed.

It has large leaves that are heart-shaped. The root of the burdock plant has a life expectancy of two seasons. Most burdock plants grow to a height of 4 to 5 feet, but the stem can grow up to 9 feet tall. Burdock can be destroyed by cutting off the flowers before the seeds form.

In the past, the seeds, leaves and roots of burdock were used to make medicine. Burdock is considered a modern plant in the grand scheme of things. Burdock, ragweed, milkweed, asters, goldenrod and wild carrots grow along our roads, but they do not thrive well in the thickets of hedgerows and forests. Only with human help do blackberries, thorn bushes, burdock and goosefoot thrive among the stumps of oak and maple trees. Humans are probably the best method of spreading seeds. Some plants have been deliberately cultivated, while others have tricked us into helping them.

If we don't like a plant, we call it a weed. Some say that weeds will inherit the earth. The weeds of the world have spread because man has ploughed the fields and disturbed the roadsides. More than a thousand species of plants have come with man from Europe. Many were loved and respected in their homeland, but have lost their restraint in our glades. Daisies, rudbeckias, mulleins, sunflowers, wild carrots, ragwort, fleabane, chicory, field thistle, mustard, together with goldenrods and asters, form the mighty Asteraceae family, the largest family of flowering plants.

The problem is not their beauty, but sometimes their uncontrolled numbers. While most of these plants have beautiful flowers, beauty is not what the farmer thinks of when mustard grows and takes over a field. Our marshes and waterways are being overrun by a plant called purple loosestrife, which, while pretty, is a problem.

Remember that a weed is just a flower that we don't need.

Bill Bower is a retired wildlife officer with the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Read his blog and listen to his nature-related podcasts at www.onemaningreen.com.