How Tumbleweeds Are Taking Over America 🏜️

3 min read

Morning Cowboy!

Tumbleweeds are truly a symbol of the American Wild West.

Bouncing across the scene of a soon to be murder in pretty much every wild western movie.

But tumbleweeds aren't just some charming tumbling bushes that roll across the American desert.

No, no.

They are actually a really BIG TUMBLING problem…

Here is the trouble with tumbleweed:

See, the tumbleweeds you see rolling across the desert are actually…dead.

They start out as a humble tumbleweed seed… like this:

Which then grows into a little plant, growing out its branches, opening its flowers and finally, birthing more seeds.

Now, heres what makes tumbleweeds unique:

The mother plant will purposely starves itself until it dies.

Then, the dead plant cracks off and gets blown away by the wind.

This doesn't sound like that much of a problem though…

Well, the issue is that, as the mother tumbleweed corpse gets taken by the wind, it leaves a trail of her seedlings behind.

Leaving a line of tumbleweed seeds.

That grow and grow…

Into more and more tumbleweeds…

See, tumbleweeds are what's called an invasive species.

They didn’t originate in the wild west.

But they sure do like it there.

And because they have the ability to pollinate themselves, they can quickly cause a chain reaction.

Causing a tumbleweed invasion!

Towns can get completely overrun by these things.

And because tumbleweeds are super sticky.

They stick to things and to each other.

So they end up piling up in towns blocking roads and homes.

Also, tumbleweeds aren’t easy to get rid of, no, no.

That would be too easy.

They are actually almost completely covered in thorns.

AND they’re also scarily flammable, being the perfect candidate for kindling.

And even if you do manage to clear all of the thousands of tumbleweeds that engulf your town…

All it takes is one little sneaky seed hiding under a leaf or something.

And the tumbleweed fiasco can start all over again…

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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