Tumbleweed

Ah, the iconic images of the old west – wind swept plains, rugged snow topped mountains, vast canyons, buttes, and ridges, and….the tumbleweed tumbling across the road. 

I first saw a tumbleweed in my early twenties, while driving in the rural west, what appeared to be a huge ball of sticks rolling and bouncing merrily across the road in front of my car.  It joined its brethren (hundred, thousands??) against the fence across the road.  Then there was another, then another.  Some were so big they looked like they had to weight many pounds, but it was obvious from their travels in the winds that they were very light indeed.  The old west, I was there, living in it, how fun. 

The noble tumbleweed has even been immortalized in song – “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” written by Bob Nolan (Sons of the Pioneers) in the early 1930’s and most famously sung (then) by Gene Autry.  

But now that I live in the middle of tumbleweed country, I know that all of that is a myth.  Tumbleweed is a NOXIOUS, highly allergenic, invasive weed, that isn’t even native to the Americas.   According to Wikipedia, it is thought to have been imported accidentally from Asia sometime in the 1870’s in shipments of flax seed.  It is called Russian thistle, or if you want to get scientific Salsola tragus.  Imported plants can do damage – think kudzu and tamarisk.  They compete for scarce water resources, and often win, crowding out the beneficial food-source grasses.

Russian thistle will grow in disturbed soils – at least that is what is said.  However, I know it can grow in solid clay, undisturbed for years except by driving rains and melting snows, if conditions are right.  The plant starts out looking quite attractive, with small, green shoots that look like a succulent grass.  When that size, they are apparently quite digestible by many animals.  We have seen chipmunks feasting on them.  But they don’t stay small for long.  Within what seems like days they get prickly, discouraging small animals, and scraping your ankles if you walk too close.  The new shoots keep on coming up until early fall, so you have huge plants and tiny plants, all prickly, all ready to bloom (at the same time) causing your nose to drown in snot.  The plant has a very long, sturdy tap root.  When they are still green, trying to pull up the plants is difficult because that tap root anchors it firmly in place.  After it blooms, after the first frost, the connection between the tap root and the plant essentially disintegrates, and the plant is free.  Sometimes that doesn’t happen until the second year for the dried plant.  Then it disperses all those prickly seeds everywhere it rolls.  Millions upon trillions of seeds deposited, just waiting for the right conditions in the spring, and then the cycle begins again. 

After having said all that, tumbleweed can still be interesting to watch.  Herds of tumbleweeds blow across the fields to our north in strong winds.  Tumbleweeds are thrown 30, 50, up to 100 feet into the air by the dust devils we have around here – a  tumbleweed tornado, fun to watch with little to no destruction compared to “real” tornadoes.  We’ll never get rid of them, so we might as well just accept them, as a symbol of the west, and the invaders who brought them.

Here is a video, set to music, of a herd blowing across our north field, for your viewing pleasure.