Tag Archives: prairie

Celebrating Sticky Seeds

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Early autumn is a season of surprise and wonder.  Colors are changing and animals are scurrying all around, trying to check off all their pre-winter tasks.  For nature enthusiasts like us, it’s also a great time to appreciate the complex and sophisticated ways plants move their seeds around the world.

For example, there’s the unexpected prick of joy when you accidentally sandwich a heretofore unseen sandbur between calf and hamstring as you kneel down to re-tie your boot laces. 

(I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used the word “heretofore”.  I hope I used it correctly.  I would have used “previously”, but when I typed it out, the spelling looked wrong for some reason.  Brains are funny.)

Sandbur (Cenchrus longispinus).

Anyway, upon discovering the sandbur, you immediately stand back up, lick your fingers, and remove it (and its friends) from your pantleg.  As you have so many times, you ask yourself why licking your fingers helps it hurt less when you grab sandburs.  Surely, the surface tension of saliva can’t provide that much protection?  Regardless, seeing and feeling the sandburs is a terrific way to celebrate their particular seed dispersal strategy. Hurray for nature!

After you identify a winding path that will allow you to avoid more nearby sandburs, you step forward – only then remembering that you’d stopped to tie your boots.  That’s when you glance down and realize that your boot laces must have pulled loose when you walked through a patch of cockleburs a little way back.  Now, a cheerful cluster of cocklebur seed pods is tangled happily in your laces like spiny little meatballs in a plate of spaghetti. 

Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium) along a wetland edge.

As you start to carefully extract the pods from your laces, you can’t help but marvel at the similar, but different architecture of cockleburs and sandburs.  Sandburs, of course have long, straight, sharp spines protruding in every direction from their mostly-spherical core.  Those spines have an impressive ability to penetrate nearly any material.

Cockleburs, on the other hand, have what look like dozens of tiny fish hooks sticking out of their football-shaped bodies.  Those hooks can poke through clothing (and boot laces), but they’re more likely to snag than poke, with the little hooks acting like a bunch of tiny grasping claws.  Of course, if they do manage to penetrate clothing or laces, the hooks also make it much harder to extract them.  It’s a really remarkable design.

The strategies of both cockleburs and sandburs are sure effective, you think, as you continue de-tangling your laces.  Also, it’s fun that both of them have “bur” in their names.  That, of course, brings back memories of learning the difference between burs, stickers, thorns, and spines at some point.  You obviously don’t remember what those differences are now – it’s been at least three or four years since you last looked that up and no one can be expected to retain information that long.  It’s fun to know there are differences, though.

Also, it’s weird that the word bur can be spelled with either one “r” or two.  You know that bur oak is definitely spelled with one, though people do insist on adding that second one, don’t they? 

Apart from the name of that tree, which definitely, always has only one “r”, you recall doing a little research a while back and learning that both bur and burr are considered correct spellings in certain situations.  There are burs that are seed pods and burs that are rough edges on metal and it seems to you that people argue whether those two should be spelled the same or differently.  Ah well, someone will probably figure that out and then people won’t have to argue anymore.

Close up, you can see the tiny hooks on the cocklebur spines (thorns? prickles? poky things?).

Anywell, you finish removing the last cocklebur (surely not cockleburr?) from your laces and leave the pods on the ground – having done them the favor of carrying them to a new potential home.  Isn’t it nice to play a helpful role in the dispersal of seeds?  You’re an actual conservation hero.

Well, hero, as you proceed through the prairie (by the way, you’re walking in a prairie), you take a detour around a big patch of tick clover plants.  You’re no fool, after all.  Tick clovers are beautiful, important wildflowers, but their seeds are like little Velcro packets that are good reminders of where the name “tick” clover comes from.  Taking on the role of a seed disperser is all fine and good, but you’re in charge of fixing supper tonight and won’t have time to both do that and scrape a load of tick clover seeds off your long-sleeved shirt.  A wandering deer will surely do the tick clover dispersal without you needing to become involved this time.

Side-stepping the tick clover takes you along the boundary between the prairie and a small adjacent woodland.  As you walk along that edge, a tentacle appears to lash out from beneath the trees and grabs onto your pants.  Startled, you pull away, but the “tentacle” leaves behind a linear string of small sticky pods.  You stumble slightly over a gopher mound, and as you catch your balance again, your leg is caught by two more of those tentacles, which turn out to be branches of the amazing stickseed plant.

Stickseed (Hackelia virginiana) hangs out mostly in woodlands, at least around here.

Stickseed has an even more descriptive name than tick clover.  The sticky “pods” carried by the stickseed branches are, as you oddly recall, actually clusters of four little “nutlets”, each containing little barbed prickles.  I dated a girl named Barb Prickle in high school, I think. 

I’m joking, of course.  Barb wouldn’t have given me the time of day.

Returning to the present, stickseed and its prickly nutlets are magnificent examples of nature’s innovation.  You know from experience that trying to rub the little nutlets off your pants will just cause them to roll along the fabric, never loosening their grip at all.  It really is a spectacular evolutionary achievement.  Well, you’ve owned these pants for almost four months now, so it was probably time to replace them anyway.  It’s a small (well, medium) price to pay for a front row seat to this lovely demonstration of seed dispersal mastery.

A close up of the nutlets with their tiny barbed prickles.
Stickseed seeds (and a little foxtail) on my hiking clothing.

You manage to pull one of the little nutlets loose to inspect it with the hand lens you always carry on a string around your neck.  Under magnification, the little prickles sure don’t look like they’d be as sticky as they obviously are.  As you’re pondering that, you turn to continue your hike and walk straight into a chest-high patch of tick clover. 

Well, look at that, will you?  The pattern of tick clover seed pods across the front of your shirt is really visually attractive. It’s like a free participatory public art project!  (Hm – the seed pods are not really pods.  What are they actually called?  Loments?  Loment segments? No one knows for sure.)  Either way, it’s loments like this that make you really ponder the awesome power of evolution.

This is Illinois tick clover (Desmodium illinoense) but there are lots of species with very similar sticky seeds (or loment segments).

You’ll have to pull those whatever-they’re-called off later, of course, because any that make it to the laundry will still be attached when the shirt comes out of the dryer.  Except, obviously, for a few that will detach and re-attach in fun, surprising places on other pieces of clothing.  That’s ok, picking tick clover seeds off a shirt later tonight will give you something to do while you’re browsing through the internet for new pants.

Speaking of tonight, look at the time!  All this marveling at the wonders of nature has taken the whole afternoon and you’d probably better get on the road so you can get home in time to make supper.  You’ve got leftover pulled pork in the fridge.  That, some fresh carrots, and a bag of chips will make a pretty nice dinner.  Maybe you’ll even stop at the grocery store on the way home and grab a nice jar of barbed prickles to complete the meal.

Photos of the Week – September 2, 2025

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August really flew by but it was a fun and interesting month. In addition to a full calendar of work and home events, I made time to explore several of my favorite prairies, including The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Niobrara Valley Preserve, and our own family prairie. I caught numerous sunrises and sunsets, foggy mornings, stormy evenings, and some bright overcast days. It was sometimes a struggle to keep up with my to-do list, but my time in the prairie always felt rejuvenating, rather than as something that subtracted from my productivity.

I spent a few mornings in the Platte River Prairies. August is often a good time for foggy mornings with light winds, and this year’s version was no exception.

Sunrise on a foggy morning at the Platte River Prairies.
Compass plant and sunrise.
Canada wildrye with dew and morning light.

One morning, I spent several minutes watching a small spider deconstruct its web, eating it as it went. Many spider species will re-make their web daily, and eating the old one is a way to gain back some of the nutrients it takes to create more silk. This one was working methodically, pulling threads toward her mouth as she circled the web and spiraled inward.

Spider consuming its web in the morning.

Hover flies are always a common sight on the flowers of grasses (as well as other wildflowers). Grasses are wind-pollinated, so the hover flies probably don’t help the grasses any, but there seems to be plenty of pollen to go around, so I doubt they do any serious harm. Plus, they’re pretty dang cute – especially when they grab anthers in their front legs as they eat.

Hover fly feeding on big bluestem pollen.
Widow skimmer in the morning.
Grasshopper peering at me from a sunflower.

We’ve had good rain this year, starting in the early summer, so most of our prairies are looking pretty lush. That includes my family’s prairie. The area we grazed hardest last year is the most full of wildflowers and insects, but the whole site looks good.

A metallic green sweat bee on purple prairie clover.
A bush katydid peering at me through the grass.
A bush katydid from a different angle.

One morning, I stopped at our family prairie well before sunrise. As I was scouting around, waiting for the sun, I saw a few bees clustered together on a flower. That’s not unusual, but I mentally noted the location in case I wanted to come back after the light improved. Shortly after that, I saw an even bigger group of bees, and then another. I’d never seen so many longhorn bees on the same flower before, and I saw similar groupings on at least 4 or 5 flowers.

Longhorn bees waking up in the morning on a stiff sunflower (Helianthus pauciflorus).

I don’t know how to explain this. Longhorn bees (it looked like maybe two or three different species?) are solitary, meaning that females dig their own nest and work by themselves to gather food for their eggs. Males don’t have nests, so spend nights outside, sometimes a few at a time on a leaf or inside a flower. Seeing this many at once, though, was new to me. I wonder if a bunch had recently emerged (from pupae) and I was seeing the new generation on its first night, before they’d had a chance to disperse (or be eaten by predators)?

Whatever the explanation, it was pretty great, and I definitely circled back with my camera once sunlight started to hit those flowers. I had to work quickly, though, because the combination of my presence and the warmth of the sun caused the bees to start flying off pretty quickly.

More longhorn bees on a different stiff sunflower.
Another longhorn bee.

Meanwhile, in the Nebraska Sandhills, it’s been a terrific year for plains sunflowers, one of two annual sunflower species that grow in the state. They are especially abundant where grazing and/or fire created some bare ground for germination this spring, but they’re common across at least the whole eastern portion of the 12 million-acre prairie landscape.

Plains sunflowers (Helianthus petiolaris) and bison fence at sunrise. Niobrara Valley Preserve.
Plains sunflower and rising sun.

The bounty of sunflowers creates more than just abundant beauty. Sunflowers are very generous with their resources, including pollen, nectar, and seeds. They don’t hide pollen and nectar inside pods, and though the seeds are in shells, they’re laid out for easy access.

In addition to those resources, sunflower leaves are very nutritious, including for large grazers (especially early in the season) and lots of invertebrates, including as the favorite food for the plains lubber grasshopper. Plus, sunflowers produce extrafloral nectar from pores up and down the plants, which attracts hungry ants.

Huge numbers of annual sunflowers usually signifies a temporary drop in the vigor of dominant grasses and other perennial plants – from drought, fire, grazing, or a combination. While those other plants are regathering their strength, sunflowers step up and provide all their abundant resources to the members of the prairie community. Plus, of course, it’s a nice thing for photographers.

Lots of plains sunflowers.
More sunflowers.
An adult antlion with sunflower color in the background.

One evening, thunderstorms started forming off to the west of the Niobrara Valley Preserve and tracked northeast, providing a prolonged lightning show that kept just enough distance from the Preserve that I could watch and photograph it safely. After dark, the storms did pass directly over us, but I was safely in bed by then.

Lightning in Sandhills prairie. Niobrara Valley Preserve.
Lightning over the Niobrara River. Niobrara Valley Preserve.

In late August, my impressive wife, Kim, and a bunch of other tough athletes ran a 50-kilometer race on the trails at Wilson Lake (north-central Kansas). I was there as driver and crew member – mainly to say something supportive and hand her food, water, or dry socks when she passed through the aid station. Most of the time, I was free to do my own thing while Kim and a bunch of other human outliers ran up and down rocky hills all day.

It was a cloudy, breezy day, so I wandered down to the sandy banks of the lake where the wind wasn’t as disruptive for photography. I spent a lot of time on my belly, trying to photograph invertebrates who were feeding, hunting, or trying to warm up on the open sand whenever the sun peeked out from between clouds.

As per usual, I had to ignore the onlookers who were trying to figure out why a grown man was lying in wet sand with a camera. The diversity and activity of little creatures was well worth it.

A juvenile wolf spider on the beach of Wilson Lake in Kansas.
A big sandy tiger beetle on the beach. There were LOTS of these.
This is what the lakeshore looked like (featuring an invasive salt cedar tree in the foreground). Now just imagine me on my belly and boaters, dog walkers, and others passing by.
A band-winged grasshopper, one of several similar species that were extraordinarily well-camouflaged.
Damselfly.
A robber fly on an old common reed rhizome.

Along edge of the sand, just before the land rose up into the rocky prairie, I found an abundance of marsh-fleabane (Pluchea odorata). It was a very pretty plant, but even more attractive to scads of pollinators than it was to me. I photographed quite a few different butterflies, flies, and wasps on and around the plant. Since this has become a long post, I’ll just share one example.

A wasp feeding on the nectar of marsh-fleabane (Pluchea odorata) on the edge of the beach of Wilson Lake.

It’s hard to believe there are only about six weeks of this growing season left here in Nebraska. I spend a lot of time outside, but I still feel like I’ve missed way too much this year and am now running out of time to see everything that’s happening. It’s going to be hard to concentrate on any indoor activities during the next month-and-a-half, knowing that while I’m stuck indoors, prairie species are rushing around trying to do everything they need to before frost hits. I should be out there with them!

Ok, gotta go.