Ah, tumbleweeds. Just the word evokes the nostalgia of old western movies. Cowboys on their horses walking about, while the wagons follow not long behind. All the while a tumbleweed blows in the arid desert.
Or if you were someone who used to watch old cartoons like Looney Tunes, a common sight in a desert scene is a single tumbleweed breaking the dead air.
Yes, tumbleweeds were a sign to most of an empty expanse that stretched far beyond the horizon.
But while many modern-day people romanticize these rolling plants as symbols of the Wild West, history begs to differ about these tumbling turnabouts.
Every tumbleweed has its thorn…
What makes a tumbleweed?
We mostly only ever see tumbleweed portrayed in media as this bouncy, brown, and dead ball of branches.
But before they began their journey of flying about through the air, tumbleweeds were alive as actual plants once.
I present to you the Russian Thistle.
It looks quite far from the tangled ball of branches that we all recognize.
While there are many species of tumbleweed, this one stands out as the most common of them all and is the same one that populates these wild west movies that we all know and love.
Pretty, isn’t it? Before it turns into a wrangled mess of dead branches, it starts out its life as a small green shoot. Bursting with life, it grows with its reddish and purple stems, and delicate flowers. One might wonder just why its dead body gets more attention than the beautiful but living one.
They can also grow from six inches to three feet tall, with the occasional giant in the group, and eventually, they will develop sharp spines that cover their entire body. Ouch!
Tumbleweed are quite hardy too and can survive so long as they have a little moisture and are in temperatures between 28° to 110°F.
Where did they come from?
As it turns out, tumbleweeds are about as western as cowboys are.
Which means not at all. Cowboys had existed in Spain long before the Americans had their eyes set on them. The Russian Thistle, true to its name, is native to the Ural Mountains in Russia. As such, tumbleweeds are actually considered an invasive species.
They managed to spread all the way across Asia and Europe. America was safe for a time, at least until Russian immigrants inadvertently brought the seeds with them to America in 1873. At the time, the arid lands were being overgrazed, making a lot of it perfect as a habitat for those tumbleweeds to tumble into and spread, which they did.
What’s the problem with tumbleweeds then?
Well, to get into that, first we need to talk about how a tumbleweed reproduces.
To put it bluntly, a tumbleweed reproduces by dying.
Tumbleweeds are attached to the earth through a single slender shoot. Eventually, the tumbleweed dies.
How, you may ask?
By allowing itself to shrivel up and die.
It seems counterproductive, but if a tumbleweed were to dry out, what happens to its body?
The taproot holding it in place turns brittle. With a little gust, the tumbleweed can, quite literally, catch the wind.
As the tumbleweed bounces across the land, it disperses its seeds, which can range to as much as 250,000 per plant.
If you still can’t see how this might become a problem, then here is a picture to help illustrate my point:
Yes, that is a picture of tumbleweed covering the road. It’s already a safety hazard as it is, but can you imagine being caught in a tumbleweed storm?
With enough tumbleweeds, all it takes is one gust of wind in the right direction for a swarm to bury a village. Heck, there have even been reports as recent as February of this year of tumbleweeds burying houses.
Tumbleweeds are a massive problem. They seem cute when few in numbers, but a generation or two of even a couple of tumbleweeds, and its population explodes exponentially, causing lots of trouble for the poor people living nearby.
Wait, it gets worse…
Tumbleweeds are a complete pain to get rid of, as they are sticky and bouncy. In large enough numbers, their branches can wrap into each other, causing a giant amalgamation of a tumbleweed. Where do you even start with one of these things?
By the way, remember the thorns mentioned earlier? Since tumbleweed are covered to the brim with them, good luck with not accidentally prickling yourself while trying to remove them from your property. Even better, the thorns are brittle as a result of dryness, meaning that they can break off and stick to your skin. Double ouch.
Tumbleweeds are also surprisingly highly flammable, likely owing to the fact that most of its body is dead, dry, and dense with branches. Even a car simply driving over tumbleweeds is enough to ignite them thanks to the heat of the engine and it can easily trap you inside a burning inferno. All that, coupled with the fact that a single seed is enough to cause another infestation (tumbleweeds can self-pollinate) makes trying to get rid of it completely practically an impossible task.
What can we do about it?
Not much, sadly. It is impossible to devote enough manpower in any infest country to comb and remove any all tumbleweeds of all shapes, sizes, and age, all in the name of tumbleweed population control, as all it takes is one little hidden seed away from the eyes of humans to start the tumbleweed cycle across the country anew. There are limited attempts to control tumbleweeds maturing by way of herbicides.
But at the very least, now you know about them. Even if they aren’t native to the west, they still bring the symbolism of being part of the wild and untamed lands in modern cities…
Suitable for the traveling tumbleweed.