Tuesday 1 December 2009

Attack of the giant seed pods

We've been away from France a maximum of three weeks but in that time the garden has been occupied by giant seed pods.  They were covering the whole area, all from our (charming) neighbour's trees.  I say charming because he did apologise for his tree before we moved in - I had no idea what he meant.



These are GIANT seed pods.



How long is that?  18 inches?  45 cm or thereabouts?   Three sacks full today and still more biding their time up on the tree.  It's not so much the pods themselves because they are relatively easy to clear away, but miss one at your peril.  The seeds germinate easily and produce seedlings with the most vicious thorns imaginable, and roots that are determined not to let go.

I think it may be an acacia, but when I tried to look it up, it turns out there are something like 1300 varieties of acacia, many of which have been reclassified as other things since 2005, and others aren't acacias at all but false acacias.  My investigative instincts failed me at this point and I returned outside to gather more pods....

21 comments:

  1. I used to live near a similar tree and you are right, the rowns of seeds in those pods srout very readily!

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  2. That is a giant seed pod! I won't want to have such a tree near my house. I have no time to clear my garden of weeds. :P

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  3. Looks like a great big runner bean to me!!

    I did think of Carob, but I reckon you would be eating them if that were true!

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  4. How bizarre, but interesting xx

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  5. Your neighbor needs to charming enough to get his trees pruned.

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  6. Oh my goodness. What a mess to deal with.

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  7. A big pod. Not as big as the Body Snatcher's pods, but very large. I agree with Hathor about maybe loaning your neighbor a rake. But you seem to have it under control.

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  8. I'm thinking "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".

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  9. They are so dark...they don't have a friendly appearance!!

    cream petals

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  10. I take it they are not edible? The thorn part is the really negative side of it- yikes

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  11. Hi A.

    These things look like something out of a Sci-Fi movie.

    Is this tree located at your NEW place?

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  12. And I thought raking leaves was bad... holy cow those are huge! I'm with Brad, sci-fi for sure :)

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  13. Hi, i think it's a Gleditsia triacanthos! :)

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  14. Thank you for the identification!!

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  15. And by the way, it's now March and I'm *still* finding them.

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  16. Sugar Locust seed pods. The animals like rabbits like to eat them. the Native Americans made beer from them or so I have read. I may be wrong, its not a good photo.

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  17. I assume you mean honey locust, which is Gleditsia triacanthos as the commentor before you said. I'm sorry the photo didn't come up to your required standards but identification wasn't really the point of the post.

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  18. Yes, this is definitely a Honey Locust. We have several on our property. I saved many of the pods and collected the seeds and will be trying to grow them next year. They're beautiful trees and their history is interesting as well. They are one of the few trees that have remained unchanged for several million years!

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately they're a menace around us. :) The leaves clog everyone's gutters, and the seeds germinate all too readily. In the right place they must be wonderful.

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  19. Yup yup, Honeylocust indeed. Very prehistoric looking.

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  20. I had never seen these before & was super curious as to what they were. I'm making wind mobiles with them! I think they're cool!!

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