milkweed on the move, Miner

The local milkweeds have fed what few Monarch butterfly adults and multicolored caterpillars were around this summer, and those storied travelers are now on their way to the Mexican highlands—even if I never managed to be in the right place at the right time on the beach to bear witness to the Monarch migration. But there are other pending journeys about to commence, and on a hike of the Miner preserve—a refuge I've monitored for the past few years—I got to watch the start of a milkweed adventure. The numerous spiny pods, the result of flower fertilization by bees and, this year especially, a huge number of Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies, are now mature and cracking open, revealing an abundance of seeds. Each one is topped with a wind-catcher—a botanical sail—and when the wind is right, the seed takes off, traveling wherever the breeze takes it. With any luck, the landing spot, whether close by or miles distant, will be in fertile soil. We should all be so lucky.