A friend told me something interesting recently about osage orange, the tree that makes a good hedgerow, the highest BTU firewood in the land (it's so hard it can dull chainsaw blades) and drops softball-sized, brain-like seed pods that aren't eaten by anything and seem to have a dispersal range limited to how far they can roll. And judging by the piles of osage oranges sitting under any given tree, they don't roll very far.
Native to certain parts of North American, osage orange has been dispersed to the rest of the country by farmers who brought the seeds with them. Pre-farming, however, biologists don't know of any living creature that would have helped disperse these seeds. The leading theory is that osage oranges were eaten and then excreted by a long-extinct pre-historic beast. Which for some reason I think is very interesting to ponder.
Native to certain parts of North American, osage orange has been dispersed to the rest of the country by farmers who brought the seeds with them. Pre-farming, however, biologists don't know of any living creature that would have helped disperse these seeds. The leading theory is that osage oranges were eaten and then excreted by a long-extinct pre-historic beast. Which for some reason I think is very interesting to ponder.
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