Evolution – a curious nature

Spring Has Arrived! Part 4: A New Mexican Sycamore

Strolling through a pretty north Albuquerque neighborhood a few days ago, I nearly stumbled over a pile of little brown golfballs. Huh? Not a single putting green in sight, I instantly deduced these carelessly cast-away orbs must be none other than last year’s sycamore fruit balls!

Sure enough, a quick glance upward confirmed my suspicion. I was standing in the shade of a huge, patchy-barked sycamore with draping branches over a stucco wall, approaching full leaf stage, and sporting hundreds of spring green fruit balls each with hundreds of immature arrow-shaped seeds.

Update ….. Winter Botany Study, Part 5c: Kentucky Coffeetree Seed Planting Trials

The story continues! My Kentucky Coffeetree seedlings are coming along beautifully. After carefully cracking and planting 9 seeds on March 27th, it was exciting to see 4 seeds had germinated about Day 18. Literally overnight these 4 seedling stems had grown to 1/2” tall.

And then ……

Update ….. Winter Botany Study, Part 5b: Kentucky Coffeetree Seed Planting (and a lonely avocado seed)

You may remember back in February, I shared a story about my Kentucky Coffeetree discovery. What fun it was to geek out over those massively excellent seed pods and to get a firsthand peek inside.

After dissecting several pods and finding them housing a bunch of beautiful brown undamaged seeds, I thought it would be fun to try and germinate them.

On March 27th the seeds were planted.