Michael Hughes, lead education instructor, Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance

There's a mystery in your garden. A new wild plant has appeared. How did it get there? Plants cannot move, yet their seeds do. How?

In fall, collect some seeds outdoors and look at them with a hand lens. Look for clues about how they travel. Think about how those plants might have gotten into your garden or neighborhood.

• hand lenses
• assortment of seeds that are dispersed in different ways helicopters: maple samaras, ash samaras parachutes: milkweed, dandelion hitchhikers: burdock animal express: raspberries, mulberries, crabapples cannonballs: jewelweed or touch-me-not boats: coconuts, cranberries
• simple construction materials such as paper, tape, glue, clay, pipe cleaners, craft sticks, cotton balls, rubber bands, paper clips, string, aluminum foil, etc.

Invent or design at least two seeds that travel in different ways. Use your imagination and the construction materials. Test your seeds to make sure they can travel some distance. Name your seed and imagine the plant it came from.

Go outside on a seed hunt. Look for seeds that travel in different ways. Do any look like your model?

1. Hungry from all that searching? Have a seed snack! Peanuts or peanut butter - bread or crackers or pasta - kiwis or cucumbers - what other foods made from seeds can you find?
2. Birds love to eat seeds too. Plant some seeds to make some seeds for them! Native plants such as grasses, sunflowers and coneflowers, and goldenrods and asters will bring seedeaters to your garden in fall and winter.
3. Make a seed scrapbook out of seeds from common plants, or rubbings of seeds. Write down where and when you found them, and interesting things that happened on your walk. Make up imaginary names for the seeds or the plants they came from. (Don't collect the seeds of rare native plants - our natural areas need all of those!)

Notice the way seeds disperse or travel as you visit different natural communities - woodland, savanna, prairie, wetland. Look for patterns. Try to determine the most important forces for spreading seed in each community.wind, water, birds, mammals.

Park District of Highland Park

• Pretend you are a furry animal. Put a big old white sock over your shoe or hand before you take your walk. (Try decorating the toe of the sock with an animal face first.) Walk in places that a furry animal might go. Collect the hitchhiker seeds and put them on a sheet of white paper. Examine them with the hand lens to see what makes them stick!
• Look for nuts like acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts. Are they mostly whole or mostly chewed?
• Go on a jewelweed hunt. Jewelweed pods split open when you touch them, and a tiny spring inside throws the seeds a yard or more away. That's why their other name is "touch-me-not." Jewelweeds can be found in wet woods in late summer or early fall.
• Find seeds near a river or pond. Bring them home and put them in a bowl of water. Do they float? Leave them for a few days and see what happens.
• Some trees, such as maples, ashes, and lindens, have seeds with wings. Collect some, and pretend to be a tree.

More than 2500 different types of plants can be found in the Chicago region. That's amazing! We are lucky to live in one of the most plant-rich places in the temperate world. That's one of the reasons it is called Chicago Wilderness.