Season of the Brains!

Ginkgo nuts ... or tiny brains seeking to take over the world?

It's late fall here in Roswell, and of course that means it's the Season of the Tiny Brains. Every year our yard fills up with these because we have a ginkgo tree planted there. It's an interesting tree, a living fossil tree that has a much more primitive leaf structure than other trees.

It's nuts are gray green and plump on the tree but they hit the ground, become dessicated, and turn gray, making it look like the ground is covered by tiny human brains. Unfortunately, they still have a pulpy interior, and even MORE unfortunately, they evolved at a time before the existence of bees. So instead of trying to attract bees with the sweet smells that advertise the existence of pollen and nectar and so forth, they try to attact an insect that was around before bees: flies.

And so they smell like the sort of thing that attracts flies. My wife thought I was stepping in dog poop a lot before we figured it out. (She gets to park in the garage, I have to park in tiny-brains-that-smell-like-dog-poop central. There is no justice!)