The Cottonwood

For several weeks now, the community garden on the river bank has been blanketed with white bits of fluff billowing across the garden.  They look like snowflakes being blown on a breeze.  They pile up in the furrows. They remind me of the fluffy parts of the dandelion, but they are bigger. 

Mayor told me, as we worked in the garden, he thought they were from the cottonwood tree.  Sure enough, he was right.

The cottonwood tree, aptly named, is a huge tree with lovely grey ribbed bark.  It is riparian in nature, meaning it grows along river banks.  Riparian is one of  my favorite words in the English language.  It survives by sending it roots deep into the soil and by sending its seeds off on the breeze.  It has set it sights on survival.

The wood is  poor  in quality.  It is used mostly for pallets and containers.  The tree grows across the United States.

These cottonwood blooms had fallen out of the tree prematurely, before being set free on the breeze.  Look how dense the bloom is at the outset of the journey.  You can see the seeds at the edges of the white fluff.

This cottonwood bloom was beginning to open up when it fell from the tree.  Look how it has expanded.  Not quite ready to take to the breeze yet.

This fluffy looks like it is about ready to take off.  See how cotton-like it has become. Hence, the appropriately named tree, from which hundreds of these pendulous fluffy blooms hang.