What was the monster plant?

August 7, 2017 • 7:15 am

Yesterday evening I posted this picture of a scary-looking bit of vegetation that I found on the trunk of my car:

Readers tried to identify it, and several hit on the correct answer: it’s the seed pod of a tree. (It had fallen from the tree overhanging my car.) But what kind of tree? I don’t yet know, but I’ll show the underside of an older pod and then the leaves of the tree. An answer will be forthcoming with probability 100%:

The tree has leaves like this, so give us an ID:

 

53 thoughts on “What was the monster plant?”

  3. Is the older pod photographed against the bark of the appropriate tree, or something else. Seems a fairly distinctive pattern, but that might be a red herring. (Doesn’t look very wet and scaly though. Or red.)

    1. That was my take as well. There are many “locust” trees – pod bearing – but I don’t recognize the funny looking thing in the picture.

      The under view looks like squirrels have opened up the shells.

      1. I am just the amateur here, guessing locus tree. But I think the others below got the fruit or seed – sedgequeen

  6. Leaf ID Off the top of my head

    Shademaster Honeylocust

    I fight understand it vis-a-vis the seed pod…. YET…

  7. The leaves make me think of one of the varieties of locust tree, but the pod isn’t right.

    1. I am heading in the same direction. The leaf appears to be alternately bipinnate. The most common images coming up for that are honey locust, which looks like a pretty good match. But those have bean-like pods, not the nut clusters of the top two images.

    1. But there aren’t any hazelnut trees around as far as I know. I’ll check again tonight, but there are two of those locust trees next to each other, and the ground underneath is littered with those pods.

      The mystery deepens.

      1. They’re alien, obviously. A species that disguises themselves as trees during the day.

        Now that they know you’re ‘on’ to them**, you are in grave danger. If you hear rustling noises outside your house at night, do not open your door.

        (This is well documented – see e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day of the Triffids, Little Shop of Horrors, Alien, etc etc…)

        cr

        ** What, you think their mothership doesn’t monitor the Internet?

        1. Also Dr Who’s She? has had at least one encounter with “Weeping Angels” with similar hoomin-stalking habits.
          Clearly I’ve not been looking up the actual sexist vitriol that has been vented over Dr Who investigating it’s feminine side. Otherwise I’d not just have had thoughts that would do justice to Robert Heinlein. Or Steve Bannon (spelling? ; the alleged auto-da-fe-later man).

    2. I see the European hazel species (Corylus avellana) every day and the leaves in this photo are surely are not from a Corylus species. Furthermore, Wikipedia says: “Hazels have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins”.

  9. There is an iphone/iPad app called LeafsnapHD that will process your picture and make suggestions.

    1. Siri says : “Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way.”

      There has got to be a way to elicit that response from the voice-powered digital assistant of your choice.

    2. In the middle photo (“older pod”) you can see the cavities where the seeds were removed. Probably because they are tasty.

      1. Those don’t have to be seed compartments. Gall wasps make similar compartments. Gall wasp compartments are more irregular while seed compartments are all nearly identical, with attachment points for the seeds, and usually a sharp suture for the capsule to open.

  14. Hypothesis: the fruits and the leaves do not belong to the same tree. The fruits were picked on a different one by a squirrel, or other vertebrate, and then eaten and dropped above Jerry’s car.

    2. I agree. The leaves are from the Fabaceae family, that would include the locust trees. But not the seed pod, that was obviously placed on Jerry’s car as a warning!

    3. Squirrels waiting to ambush His CelingCatness? Or paying him back for last years sunflower seeds?

  15. I’m sure the fruits do not belong with those leaves. The fruit cluster is Corylus columa, which can be a tree or bush.

    The leaves could well be Black Locust (does the tree have pairs of short thorns?) or maybe Honey Locust. Anyway, they are from a legume tree (Fabaceae).

    2. I think the leaves come from the Kentucky coffee tree which is listed as a street tree in Chicago. And the thing Jerry initially asked about IS a cluster of nuts from a Turkish Hazel, which is also listed as a street tree in Chicago. So either Jerry is teasing us or something blew around and landed where it did not belong?

        1. Yes, I saw it. It kind of confirmed for me my growing impression at comment #12.
          Plus as a somewhat naturalist the leaves and fruit just do not come across as belonging to the same family.
          So is Jerry teasing us deliberately.?

  17. I went to the Wikipedia entry for Turkish Hazel which is under the title Corylus colurna.

    One look at the gallery there is all it takes. The image captioned as Bristly Involucre is pretty compelling.

    It is a popular city street tree but not grown commercially except as a good root stock.

  18. It is Capillamentum Praesidis.
    That is President’s Wig not to be confused with Capillamentum Pseudopraesidis, the False President’s Wig, which is not to be confused with Capillamentum Pseudopraesidis Vulgaris

  19. This shrub has become rather invasive recently especially along the northern side of the US/Mexican border where it is showing signs of growing into an impenetrable barrier.
    There are fears that it has recently cross-fertilised with the Russian variant and that this resultant species could have an unpredictable effect on the world ecological balance. This is currently under stringent investigation by the Fruit and Bush Institute

  20. The bush is thought to have been brought to the New World from the remoter mountainous regions of Sussex, England where it is known as the Piltdown Nut.
    The locals, who are known unaccountably as Pongos are noted for their habit of laconically chewing the fruit of this plant to the extent of provoking abnormal wear on their molars which has even been the subject of scientific discussion (notably by Arthur Keith).
    Prolonged exposure to nut chewing can provoke two unusual side effects: reduced cranial volume and abundant growth of orange tinted hair. The former has, in the past, contributed to rather startling, if erroneous, anthropological conclusions coming to be drawn from local cranial and mandibular fragments

    1. 🙂

      I drove past Piltdown in my recent meanderings (or at least past a sign that said ‘PILTDOWN 1’). Made me think of this bl*g for a moment.

      Didn’t notice any monuments (or any mountains for that matter, but that was probably due to the massive power and effortless hill-climbing abilities of my Fiat 500)

      cr

      1. My first pushbike was like that. Just couldn’t hold it back.
        The Sussex mountains are actually below sea-level. That’s why they are called the Downs.
        The highest one, -K2, was actually climbed by parachute.

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