Today, I bring you more than you wanted to know about curly dock, Rumex crispus. If you've noticed it at all, it's probably that you've seen the dark brown seed pods clustered on a tall stack. They particularly stand out in the winter.
Let's do that a little closer.
I brought some of those seeds home the other day. Now we are going to learn some of the limitations of the little cheap digital microscope I bought. First of all, very dark seeds just show up as blobs. The little light is pretty strong, but not strong enough. However, I was able to show the size of the seed pods. They are about 3 mm across.
I went and got an additional 60W light and struggled to get it aimed so it was helpful. I was able to show the general shape of each pod. It is three-sided with wings, and a seed chamber nestled in the center. This microscope just isn't what I want.
Note that I'm still calling this the pod. We still have to get the seed out of the middle. Most curly dock pods have one seed, but occasionally they can have two. There are a number of other docks. I can distinguish some of them by the leaves (not found at this time of year), but based on the edges of the tepals (the wings), I'm pretty sure this is the most common curly dock. And inside? We find a cute little 3-sided seed, only about 1 mm long.
The fact that the seed has three sides tells me the plant is a monocot (when the first leaves come up from the seed, there is only one, not a pair), and that the leaves will show parellel veins. Monocots include such things as all grasses, lilies, orchids, and several others groups of plants.
You can grind these pods and seeds into a flour, although I've never tried it. Maybe I should. There is plenty of this plant around.
In other news: I finished part 2 of my current editing job (1 to go), I worked in the pantry, and the words in Vacation from DMS is up to 24,807.
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