In places like the southern San Joaquin Valley they can grow to be more than 6 feet tall, said Pitcairn. Tumbleweeds cause a host of problems in California, where they’re found throughout the state. When it gets a little water, the embryo will uncoil and grow into the soil. “It has been known in Russia many years,” Dewey wrote, “and has quite as bad a reputation in the wheat regions there as it has in the Dakotas.” This is where the name Russian thistle originates, said Ayres, although tumbleweeds aren’t really thistles.Įach tumbleweed seed contains an embryo like this one. through South Dakota in flaxseed imported from Europe in the 1870s. Dewey, wrote in 1893 that Russian thistle had arrived in the U.S. Genetic tests have shown that California’s most common tumbleweed, known as Russian thistle, likely came from Ukraine, said retired plant population biologist Debra Ayres, who studied tumbleweeds at the University of California, Davis.Ī U.S. “But its common name is Russian thistle.” You think it must be native,” said Pitcairn. “They pile up against fences and homes.”Īnd tumbleweeds aren’t even originally from California, or the West for that matter. “They tumble across highways and can cause accidents,” said Mike Pitcairn, who tracks tumbleweeds at the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento.
TUMBLEWEED GIF WESTERN DRIVERS
As they roll and bounce, pushed by gusts of wind, they can overwhelm entire neighborhoods, as happened recently in Victorville, California, or become a threat for drivers and an expensive nuisance for farmers. But in real life, they’re not only a noxious weed, but one that moves around.
Tumbleweeds might be the iconic props of classic Westerns.
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