Maple seeds beginning to develop
It won’t be long until there will be hundreds (if not thousands) of those twirling, spinning maple tree seeds flying to Earth. The technical term for this winged seed is samara, but you probably refer to them as helicopters or whirligigs.
These are all names for those wonderfully spinning things that come off of some maple trees each spring or early summer. (The name samaras is the technical nomenclature for this.) Yes, they become the seeds of the trees. The aerodynamic design allows the seeds to spin as they fall, and they will travel over long distances from the tree.
“Whirligigs” on the tree getting ready to fly
Seed positioned ready to germinate
Hundreds of these spinners will come from each tree, and they will be responsible for many seedling trees as well as clogging gutters and downspouts. In addition, many like to consume the seeds. Try them, they are tasty!
We finally had a wonderful day, suitable for enjoying the outdoors in our backyard. Even though it was rather breezy, the sunshine and temperatures near 80 made for a most comfortable session on our canopy covered swing.
Our son surprised us with another colorful and striking cut flower arrangement. This time we were treated with some multi-colored daffodils in addition to the beautiful yellow blooms. It was a treat to look upon them while we enjoyed some bird watching and squirrel watching too.
While looking at birds on the feeder, I felt something hit my arm. Looking down I saw a cluster of “whirligigs” or “helicopters”, in other words maple tree seeds. Our maple tree literally covers our yard each spring with these fun adaptions to Nature’s procreations. We’ve already noticed many new maple seedlings sprouting from last years crop of fliers.
Roadtirement 