White sprinkles in the middle of June
After a nature walk in June you can look like a walk through the winter forest: all white flocked. What is falling down there are of course not snowflakes, but with a high probability poplar seeds. The little fellows, however, have a resemblance to the fall goods that children long for in winter: They are equipped with a white, downy head that makes them look like soft flakes leaves.
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Seeds with paraglider
The reason for this is, as with all other anemochorous (wind-winged) plants, that the poplar has chosen the wind as a helper for its generative reproduction. So she adapted her seeds to this external factor and equipped them with a kind of paraglider - in the form of a fine, white tufts of hair, with the help of which the seed can fly a few meters away from the mother tree and try its luck with germination.
The tuft also makes the seeds float quite well, so that with a little luck they can be transported much further in rivers or streams.
Ripe seeds ready for take-off
The ripening of the poplar seeds takes place in the capsule fruits of the fertilized female catkins. By the way, the mediator for pollination by male kitten flowers is also the wind. When the poplar seeds are ripe, the catkins release them on their journey towards the bottom of the seedbed. To do this, it opens the flaps of the capsule fruits and leaves the rest to the wind. This releases them and creates the annual flake drift.
Lots of seeds from lots of capsules
There are very many of the capsule fruits and the seeds they contain on a female kitten. The individual seeds are not particularly well equipped for this and have a rather low chance of germination. In their generative reproduction, poplars rely on quantity instead of quality like other plants.
Due to the large number of seeds dancing through the air towards the ground, the bottom line is that the reproductive quota is balanced out again.
What poplar wool can do
The head of hair of the poplar seeds consists of fine cellulose fibers. In addition to the flight aid, these also have the purpose of absorbing moisture and causing the seeds to swell for better germination. For birds, the fluffy poplar wool is a welcome cushioning material for their nests. People used to use poplar wool to make fine paper.