Soaring Seed

Just beside our garage is an arbor covered with Wisteria, specifically the cultivar 'Cooke's Purple' - a vigorous vine that can make a canopy dense with pendent inflorescences of blue-purple pea flowers. The vine is coming into bloom right now, and we are promised a glorious sight. By the time flowering is completed, the light green leaves will just have begun to expand, and in short order the vine will create a good shade.

When in full flower, Wisteria resonates with the buzzing sounds of bees, hovering and clambering from flower to flower. This activity results in some pollinations that yield fruit, which grow to become velvety green, lumpy and woody beans. By autumn, when the leaves have fallen, the beans are brown and dry - and hard.

A few autumns back I was clearing the garden area around the Wisteria arbor, which is also a potting bench. To wash the dust off all of the surfaces, I hosed down the structure, vine and all. Within a few minutes of the drenching, while cleaning around the garage entrance, I heard a crack/pop, and the tap of a landing, then another, then several - like a handful of popcorn reaching its modest crescendo in a pan. But the lid was off and seed were flying in all directions..., beautiful, flattened, shiny, and speckled brown. They pelted tools and shelving in the garage, flew into potted plants, and landed in soil and lawn - as far as 15-20 feet from the the scores of fruit that were curling and snapping open once soaked with water. It was a stunning performance, and something I had not expected at all.

So no surprise when, while cleaning around the arbor this winter, I discovered seed all around - in pots and soil. And a lot of them had successfully sprouted; little Wisteria plants showing up all around. I steadily weed them out, knowing there will be more, for it is March again, and the mother plant is back in bloom. I will soon smell their pea blossoms, wondering if my lingering perception that they smell like grape jelly will be confirmed by reality, or will prove to be an altered memory, inspired by the faint resemblance of the flower cluster to clusters of grapes. And if I have a moment, before the rains that come around Thanksgiving, I will hose down the arbor, just for the fun of it.