Tropicals and South Florida

So, I just recently took a short vacation to Florida Keys (Key West to be exact), and was blown away by the flora there. A good part of my vacation was taken up by wandering the island and gathering random seed pods from the different plants.

While there were a lot of common plants between Florida and Texas, they had one tree that I HAVE to get - a royal poinciana tree. Check it out here: Royal Poinciana .

This tree is beautiful, with gorgeous blooms. The seed pods are huge - 8" or so. We managed to find one half of a seed pod on the ground. We couldn't pry it open with our hands, but I shook it and heard rattling, so I'm hopeful.

We also picked seeds for several vining plants and flowering bushes. Of course, I was only partially prepared with a plastic bag but no markers or tape, so I wasn't able to mark any seeds. Of course, I knew I could remember them all. Oh, but I also wasn't sure about transporting the seeds to Texas, so I had to (chose to) scatter them about in my suitcase so they would look like trash and not smuggled seed pods. It worked, but now I really have no clue which seed is which now. So, my summer/ fall seed project will be to grow the seeds and identify the plants. And now I understand more about why Beth keeps wanting to go back to FL - the plants were amazing!

Hoe Naomi