Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants

by Douglas W. Tallamy

Aliens that do not produce animal-dispersed fruits or nuts rely on the wind to carry their seeds. A Norway maple produces thousands of seeds each spring, each of which bears a winglike structure that sends the seed into a helicopter spin as it descends to the ground. If there is even a slight breeze blowing when the seed detaches from the tree, it can travel a dozen yards or more before it hits the ground. Who knows how far wind-dispersed seeds can go when a strong wind blows? One spring my wife found three Japanese maple seedlings growing on our property. After searching the nearest housing development, we found what was probably the parent tree—more than half a mile away! Some aliens produce so many seeds that the sheer volume of seeds ensures that some will move considerable distances from the parent plant. Purple loosestrife is an excellent example. A single mature plant can release over 2.7 million seeds every year of its long life. Think of the seeds produced in a wetland choked by thousands of purple loosestrife plants! These billions of seeds remain viable in the soil for at least two years and can form a seed bank of immense size. Similar seed characteristics have enabled aliens like garlic mustard to invade nearly every forested acre in the eastern deciduous biome.