WHAT AM I?
I appear dead before I am alive
Although often quite small, inside my skin a tree can live
I can survive hundreds of years without food or water
I can be as small as dust or as large as a football
Humans and animals eat me
I can fly, swim and hitch a ride
I can survive freezing, fires and intense droughts
What am I? (answer at the end)
The sound of the brown bags crunching in our hands was oddly memorable. We labeled each bag for each way Seeds Travel (by Wind, by Exploding, by Animals, Hitchhikers, Floaters) and then we hunted the forest for wild seeds and collected them in their respective, crunchy brown paper bags. This time of year the jewel weed seeds peak and their herbaceous green seed pods explode with even gentle touch. What fun we had exploding pods, picking off hitchhikers, collecting cute acorns and finding jackpots of hickory nuts. Later in the morning when we harvested and slurped down cherry tomatoes, we took notice that we also eat seeds without much notice sometimes. Tomato seeds are tricky to save, but we learned the trick today and it involves mold! We also harvested plums from the small plum grove and took our bounty to the kitchen where we learned how to make plum jelly. Everyone took a jelly jar home.
Answer: A seed