TFN Juniors Spring 2021 Nature Class #1

Hello everyone and thanks for adding photos to our very first slideshow of the Spring 2021 TFN Jrs Zoom Nature class. Please keep it up–we love sharing what you have seen in nature that week.

At the class we dissected ‘winter weeds’, the stalks remaining standing at the end of the winter. We were detectives, working backwards from the structures we could see on the plant–to what the plant looked like during the growing season. We found out the ovary turns into a big fat seedpod. The flower is attached at the top and dies and falls off as the seeds grow. The milkweed pod is attached to the plant by a large woody stem, that was once very thin and supported a single flower. Only one flower in a milkweed actually produces seed.

Please have a look at this video from two summers ago about how Milkweed and other plants get pollinated and make seed.

Please send in photos and join us for next week’s Zoom nature class on early amphibians. The class will be led by Andrew Interisano, a Master Naturalist and photographer. He has asked that you make a small paddle that is green on one side and red on the other. He would also love for you to try scooping some pond water in a clear plastic jar to see what is swimming about already.

Toronto Field Naturalists wishes to acknowledge this Land through which we walk. For thousands of years, the Land has been shared by the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe. Toronto is situated on the Land within the Toronto Purchase, Treaty 13, the traditional and treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is also part of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, a covenant agreement between Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Wendat peoples and allied nations to peaceably share the land and all its resources. Today, the Land is home to peoples of numerous nations. We are all grateful to have the opportunity to continue to care for and share the beauty of this Land.