Well, I guess those plants in the pots gave more seeds than I had though.
Crickets the size of kittens crawl among the woddy stems of the plants. Each stem has three longitudinal flutes running along its surface. They stop at the sprouts where the leaves emerge then continue. I find it very difficult to see any distinct meristems. Among the thick tangle of green stems I can see a few dried seed pods. The have a papery texture of papyrus or of newsprint printed a century ago and left in a sunlit drawing room for many years. Some of them are over a foot in length with eight or nine or more bulges showing thorugh the thin skin of the pod. The skin is textured with many criss-crossing fibers like the texture of mulberry or rice paper.
Three pods, four pods . . at least 30 or more seeds.. I'll have more than enough to plant next year!
From time to time the crickets remove spiky leaves that look like blades of pampus grass. These leaves only grow from the base of the plant. They chew them into smaller pieces with their jaws, moving back and forth like the mouth apparatus of a blue crab. Rather than eat the spade shaped-leaves of the plant, they eat these leaves instead. Perhaps the plant provides them with these leaves for nourishment, and the crickets take care of the plant in return. Some of the crickets in the higher stems of the plant sever the dried connection where the seed pods remain attached, letting the pods fall into the interior of the plant. Crickets lower down then pick them up and place them outside the plant on the side away from the wall.
It's a good thing the crickets are here. Sometime I forget to water the plants.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu