Bloodroot Fruit

Here is a bloodroot plant, forming its fruit. The flower probably finished blooming a week before I captured this shot on April 9th, 2006, near Greenbriar Cove in the Smokies. Inside this fruit pod, the seeds are developing. They start out pale ivory color and get darker and darker with time. The ripe seeds are about the size of sesame seeds, but more round. When the fruit is ripe, it "pops" open along its seam, revealing the dark brown and shiny seeds. One goal for next year is for me to photograph the seeds so I can show them instead of describing them with words. These seeds have an ivory colored fatty substance on their surface, which attracts ants. Ants take the seeds back to their nests and eat the fatty substance, leaving the seeds to germinate and grow new plants.