Flora of the Bay

Sounds like a story about an old-fashioned girl growing up on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay in the 1800s, doesn’t it? No. Flora as in Flora and her younger brother Fauna.

There are so many tiny plants growing on the beach that a person could make a whole botanical career studying just those. I’m not going to do that–I already have too many obsessions–but this particular tiny plant caught my eye. At first I thought seed fluff from other plants had blown into its stems, or maybe it was duckdown, or Cowboy fur. Everything else is covered with Cowboy fur. But no, the fluff is emerging from the tiny plant itself.

I had never seen seed capsules like these. It looks like the stems themselves dry out and then split open.

I am so taken with it that I might go down there someday just to watch it and see what it does.

As always, any wisdom you have is welcome. I replaced my missing Wildflowers of Michigan, so maybe I can figure it out later. Right now I have other work to do. Right now. (Can you tell that I am saying this to myself in the same voice I use when I tell Miss Sadie and the Cowboy that it is time to come inside?)

Update 8/13/2010: This post has been re-posted, with my cheerful agreement, on Our Town: Antrim County at the Record Eagle. Of all the lovely posts Jeanne could have chosen, she chose this one. I suspect she’s just weird for mystery plants.