momoese

At the grade school I went to there was this tree that had seeds with wings and when they fell they would rotate like a helicopter blade. I was looking at rain pictures and stumbled across this, the same as the helicopter tree! What is it?

Jananas Bananas

Is it a Sycamore maybe?

Google Image Result for http://www.naturegrid.org.uk/biodiversity/plants/graphics/sycseed.jpg

~JaNan

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Jananas Bananas

momoese

Close Janan, but that Sycamore has two blades. If you look close at the ones in the picture you can see that they will seperate when they fall off.

Here I found it. It's a Maple tree! EDIT: Apparently several trees have "Auto-rotating" seeds.

Galley Proofs: July 2009

LilRaverBoi

Yeah, I was just gonna say maple tree. The pic above looks kinda like a red maple, but I'd have to see pics of leaves to tell for sure. So how do you not know what a maple tree is Mitchel? LOL. Maybe it's just my area, but we have them EVERYWHERE!

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momoese

We have some Maple here too, but I'm not sure what kind. I just googled spinning tree seed and found the answer pretty quickly. That seed in the picture on the link I posted looks exactly like the ones at my school.

LilRaverBoi

Around here, it's hard to find a house without at LEAST one maple in the yard. They're planted along the streets, grow along river's creeks and make up half of the trees in any forest. Like I said, they're EVERYWHERE!

The types of maples most common here are sugar, silver, red, crimson king, norway and japanese maples used as a landscaping plant (not native, obviously).

Here are some pictures of leaves:
Sugar Maple


Silver Maple (Undersides of leaves is silver and bark is shaggy on mature trees)


Red Maple (leaves are green with red petiole all summer, much smaller leaves than the other types and they turn BRIGHT RED in the fall)


Crimson King Maple (a type of norway maple...leaves are always this color)


Norway Maple


Japanese Maple (regular and threadleaf below)



All the maples have seeds like the ones in your picture above...the leaves (and bark) are the key identifiers. Also, maples turn very bright colors in the fall...yellow, orange and red. Not sure how much color change you guys get out there, though due to the climate difference.

Hope that helps!

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BANANA RAVE!
Feel the beat from start to stop, dancin' and movin' from bottom to top!
lilraverboi@genxglow.com
RIP Tog Tan. We love you and will always remember you!
I'm Bryan with a Y! There is no 'I' in BRYAN!

CookieCows

When I was little my best friend had some kind of huge maple in her front yard and in the fall the leaves would fall to the ground and be super sticky and be horrible to walk on!

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Abnshrek

I don't know which one's are sticky but a regular maple has the leaves fall and has the helicopters :^) of course.. My mom & Dad have one in their front yard.

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Jack Daw

Wow, these trees grow here in all colors (literally, green, red, purple, yellow... leaves). And its leaf is present in Canadian Flag, Mitchell.

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Bananaman88

That type of seed structure is called a samara, for all you other plant geeks out there. The photo looks like a Japanese Maple to me.

Here's the definition: NOUN: A dry, indehiscent, winged, often one-seeded fruit, as of the ash, elm, or maple

conejov

I always liked those when I was growing up We used to gather them and then run tot he second floor to drop them and watch them fly, who would have known it a was a maple.

thanks mitchel for posting, It takes me back.

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