Much like a tornado as it whirls and spins, helicopter seeds create their own mini vortex, allowing them to spin gently instead of simply falling to the ground! The term was coined based on the way the seeds spiral through the air as they fall from the tree. Look at their leaves – If in doubt, try and find their parent trees. If you have a tree with long brown seed pods, it may be a catalpa. It can be trained to a single-trunked small tree that reaches 20 to 30 feet tall. Onto the fun part! In this tutorial, we are going to learn all about helicopter seeds. They are so named because they spin through the air as they fall – like helicopter propellers. Take a look at the leaves and the colours of the leaf stalks (sycamore, field maple and Norway maple leaves all look very similar, but sycamore has red stems.). Some have only one wing (like ash and pine), others have lobed wings (hornbeam, birch and alder) and some have round wings (wych elm). Linden grows with its wing-like leaf wrapped around a stem, and its seeds nestled inside small clusters of fruit dangling beneath the stem. They are readily seen, especially in the autumn and winter – they look like big brown bundles hanging on the tree. They cluster at branch ends for a showy display. Our other winged seeds are also pretty easy to identify once you know what to look for. Identifying trees that commonly grow in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Region. There are actually two types of flying seeds – winged seeds and parachute seeds. In the UK you can find four different trees which produce ‘helicopter seeds’: field maple, ash, sycamore, and Norway maple. Milkweed. © Copyright 2020 Hearst Communications, Inc. Pink trumpet tree has showy, bell-shaped pink to white flowers in spring and summer followed by long, slender pods 6 to 12 inches long. Meet our other nuts and seeds. Both species have palmately compound leaves with the oval leaflets arranged like the fingers on a hand. Many trees produce winged seeds and helicopter seeds. Look at their wings – Field maple wings are wide and almost horizontal, while sycamore seed wings are small and close together. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), helicopter seeds create their own mini vortex, Find out how maple seeds spin as they fall, Compare their seeds and leaves in our trees field guide, They can hide inside tasty fruits and berries to be eaten and dispersed by animals and birds, They can be encased in tough outer shells to protect and encourage them to roll and bounce away, Some seeds are really light and tiny so they can blow away on the wind of be swept away by water, Winged seeds incorporate a thin membrane that acts like a sail and helps the seed fly away. How many blades does the seed have? Hornbeam has three blades. Field maple leaves have 3-5 rounded lobes, while Norway maple has sharp, pointy, star-shaped leaves. This slows them down, giving them more time to fall and more time for the wind or air currents to carry them away. Helicopter seeds are winged seeds, but they are not the only type of winged seeds. Helicopter seeds are a type of flying tree seed. The closely related southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides) grows in USDA zones 5 through 9. Lets get started! Seeds are shiny, black, papery with a bulge at one end - like tiny tadpoles. The object is to get the seed a distance away from the parent plant so that the seeds can colonize new territory. Do you think you could identify these seeds if you found them? Couldn't possibly be because over a loooooooooong time, the trees with the better flying seed pods due to random un-purposed mutations in the genetic code propogated better? Are you ready? The seeds of some trees flutter through the air with aerodynamic precision. 2 seeds in a pod. Long, thin and cylindrical seed pods are characteristic of most members of the bignonia family or Bignoniaceae. Flowering from late spring to early fall, desert willow is used in low-water gardens for screening and specimen plantings. Tree identification by examining images of seeds and fruits. And in ash, the seed is right at the very top. Yellow trumpet tree reaches 30 to 40 feet high with bright yellow, fragrant flowers, often appearing when the tree is temporarily deciduous in late winter and spring. Seedpod is brown, flat, heart-shaped with two sides. Yellow bells grows in USDA zones 7 through 11, usually as a multitrunked large shrub. But, it is easily mistaken for one so is on my list). Several varieties and hybrids are available, some with orange flowers. Northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa), growing in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 4 through 8, is the most cold-hardy of the bignonia family trees with long, slender pods. Find out how maple seeds spin as they fall. (There are also non-spinning winged seeds.). The pods follow large, colorful, trumpet-shaped flowers. But, the real name for winged seeds, is a samara (while, parachute seeds are called pappi). University of Florida IFAS Extension: Tabebuia Heterophylla: Pink Trumpet Tree, North Carolina State University Extension: Catalpa Speciosa, North Carolina State University Extension: Catalpa Bignonioides, Water Use it Wisely: Plant of the Month - Desert Willow - Chilopsis Linearis, Southwest Desert Flora: Tecoma Stans, Yellow Trumpet Bush. Pick it up, high, high, high… as high as you possibly can. Meet our other nuts and seeds. Each flower has five petal lobes, often with two petals more to the top and three petals to the bottom of the trumpet. Long, thin and cylindrical seed pods are characteristic of most members of the bignonia family or Bignoniaceae. But, in the British Isles, there are eight main types of flying tree seed: We also have a few tiny flying seeds, such as those of birch and alder. Native to the American Southwest, Mexico and Central and South America, yellow bell or yellow trumpet (Tecoma stans) has abundant clusters of yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers throughout its growing season, with 4- to 8-inch-long slender pods that hang in clusters. Finally, Norway maple seeds hold their wings in a downwards sloping angle. Do they all twirl and fall in the same way? The three big ‘helicopter-type seeds’, field maple, Norway maple and sycamore, can be a little tricky to identify at first, but there are a few ways to tell them apart.